For here, retired, the sinking billows scribed as the mother of all the Milesleep,

sian towns on the Bosphorus. The And smiling calmness silvered o'er the deep:

motive, or encouragement for these I only in the bay refused to moor,

settlements must have been of a comAnd fix'd without my hawsers to the mercial kind, and must at least have shore.

been connected with the fertility of From thence we climbod a point, whose

a region which, under good manageairy brow Commands the prospect of the plains

ment, was fitted to be the granary of below;

Eastern Europe. Kertch afterwards No tracks of beasts, nor signs of men, became the capital of the flourishing we found,

Greek kingdom of Bosporus, which But smoky volumes rolling from the

subsisted for several centuries. ground.

The most celebrated name conUncertain as the historical ele- nected with these scenes in ancient ments may be which enter into the history is that of Mithridates, one of fabulous legends of Greece, we may the most powerful, and perhaps the venture to infer from them thus most persevering of all the enemies much, that the Black Sea must have that arose against the Roman repubbeen the scene of early adventure lic. This prince, apparently of Perand enterprise, and the seat of great sian_blood, was born at Sinope, on wealth and important commerce be- the Black Sea, and to his hereditary tween the Eastern and Western kingdom of Pontus soon added the world. It seems clear also, that its Bosphorus and other dominions, of northern shore was from a remote which Kertch may be considered as period subjected to inroads by a suc- the metropolis. The extent of his cession of tribes, each brayer or more empire, and the miscellaneous napowerful than those who previously tionality of its inhabitants, are occupied it. Among these occupants evinced by the recorded fact or fable were the Tauri, who gave a name to which has made his name proverbial, the district which it still retains, and that he could converse with the depuwho, in early times, seem to have ties of his different subjects in twentybeen eminently savage and super- five languages; yet in this singular stitious, adorning the roofs of their region even that degree of versatility houses with the heads of their would not be sufficient to embrace enemies, and sacrificing shipwrecked the various tongues of all the tribes mariners to a virgin goddess sup- under his sway. There is something posed to resemble Diana, under sublime in the character and fate of whose auspices they probably found this man, surrounded by his legion of it convenient to carry on the traffic languages, and wielding almost a of wrecking, which has disgraced mythical power over life and death ages and countries of much higher by his skill in poisons and antidotes ; civilisation.

bestriding the boundary of Europe In process of time the influence of and Asia, and, like the Russian of Greek colonisation and commerce our own day, fixing his position was favourably felt in developing the where the keys of empire, alike of resources of the Taurian Chersonesus east and west, were near his grasp ; and its neighbourhood ; and in the classed by the Greek and Roman sixth or seventh century before Christ nations as a barbarian, yet hailed by the Milesians had rendered the navi- the one as a deliverer, and feared by gation of the Euxine comparatively the other as a destroyer ; calling forth easy and familiar; and at first, per- and sometimes defeating, but always haps, in irony, though afterwards in eluding, the greatest efforts of the best earnest, had changed its name, if not generals of Rome during a quarter of its nature, from the Inhospitable to a century; and at last perishing in the Hospitable Sea. They are said his old age by his own hands in the to have founded a great number of midst of domestic disaffection and maritime colonies on its shores, and, family feud. The town of Kertch among others, the city of Pantica- was the scene of his death, and a pæum, now Kertch, which is de- neighbouring hill still bears his name.

race.

Among the achievements of Mith- it to the Crimea ; and Procopius, a ridates, he is stated to have overcome more accurate and able writer of the the Scythians of the Taurian Bospho- same age, gives a distinct description rus in a naval engagement during of a tribe of Tetraxite Goths settled summer, on a spot near Kertch, on as an independent nation in this very which he afterwards again defeated district, and surviving as remnants them in winter in a cavalry action of a larger population of the same on the ice ; a fact sufficiently indicaa

He states them to be Christive of that wide range of tempera- tians, though he is ignorant whether ture and periodical severity of climate they are Arian or orthodox, and which our own countrymen have mentions that, in the twenty-first since so feelingly experienced: year of Justinian's reign, a deputation

At a later period, the connection from them arrived at Byzantium, of certain Gothic tribes with the ostensibly to solicit the appointment Black Sea presents the singular spec- of a new bishop, but covertly, at the tacle of a Germanic people in an same time, to suggest what ought to insulated position among hordes of be done by the Romans for the subalien origin, and is especially interest- jugation of the barbarous nations of ing to ourselves as a nation of kindred Huns and others among whom they blood.

were situated. A Gothic

episcopal The Goths, as we may infer from see at Theodosia, or Caffa, in the the sure evidence of language, were Crimea, in connection with Constanof Eastern origin; but their songs tinople, continued to be officially reand legends seem to have handed cognised for several centuries, and down a tradition that their earliest travellers from time to time bear settlement in Europe was in the witness to the continuance of a Gothic neighbourhood of the Baltic, whence race in that region in the thirteenth, they afterwards migrated to the fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. western shores of the Euxine. In The minute and intelligent account the third century of the Christian of Auger Gislen, better known by his era they were established in con- local name of Busbequius, who went siderable force in the countries of as Austrian ambassador to the Turks Dacia and Mæsia ; and from the about the year 1560, is a strong conmouths of the Danube and Dniestr firmation of the other evidence on they repeatedly made plundering this subject. His statement, though expeditions by 'sea to the tempting curious and interesting, is too well coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. known to require insertion. Joseph One of the most interesting of the Scaliger, in the end of the sixteenth early accounts of the Black Sea and century, says that the Goths about its borders is given by Ammianus Perecop still possessed the Scriptures Marcellinus, who describes their con- in the language and characters of dition in the fourth century with the Ulphilas ; but more lately the traces accuracy, perhaps, of personal obser- of a surviving Gothic population in vation. He speaks of Pantica- this district become fainter and faintpæum (Kertch) as the mother of all

er in succeeding writers; their Christhe Milesian cities, but he does not tianity itself seems to have died out mention any people in its immediate amidst the surrounding heathenism, neighbourhood whom we can dis- as in 1760 we are told of a Turkish tinctly trace as of Gothic blood, galley-slave, of the race of Crimean though it is plain that the Goths had Goths, who mentioned that their then extended their settlements along religion consisted solely in worshipthe north-western shore of the Euxine. ping an old tree. About the end of Neither is it very easy to draw a clear the last century they seem entirely to inference from the obscure and con- disappear, though Moias Bschkrantz, fused account which Jornandes, in in his Armenian Travels, which apthe sixth century, gives of the eastern peared at Venice in 1830, is said to settlements of the Goths, which were speak of Gothic monuments and inat a distance from his own home; scriptions at Mankoup and Sudagh, yet his account of Ermanaric's king- both in the Crimea. dom on the Euxine seems to extend The history of the Crimean Goths

a

has brought us past some of those “The traveller," says Dr M'Pherson, momentous changes which the coun- on approaching Kertch, whether by sea try has otherwise undergone in mo

or by land, beholds a wide expanse of dern times, but on which we shall steppe or meadow land, having an uudu. now merely touch so far as may help mounds. As he nears the Necropolis of

lating surface dotted with ridges and to illustrate our more immediate sub- the ancient Milesian city, these mounds ject.

assume the appearance of immense In 1226 the Crimea, with the adjoin

cones. The surface of these mounds and ing territory, was invaded by the Tar- ridges is so equally developed, they tars, that Mongolic race which long are so regular in formation, so strikingly ruled over it, and which still--or did similar in every respect, and so numertill lately-constitutes the bulk of its ous, that the mind at once becomes conpopulation. But simultaneously with vinced of their artificial construction. their sway, and under a nominal sub

“ They are, in fact, sepulchres of the jection to it, the great maritime pow

ancient world; and their size and grandeur ers of that period, Venice and Genoa, and power of the people by whom they

excite astonishing ideas of the wealth established themselves in the Black

were erected : for the labour of con. Sea successively, or in rivalry with

struction must have been prodigious and each other; and under the Genoese the expenditure enormous. Grotesque in particular the Crimea became, in peaks of coral rag arise from the plains, the fourteenth and beginning of the in the midst of these sepulchral monufifteenth centuries, a flourishing seat ments, and give a sublime aspect to this of commerce, and the great key of vast field of the dead." communication between Europe and

“ The Russian Government,” he says, the East. The growing power of the

“ has shown, for some years past, a laudTurks, however, terminated this state

able desire to preserve all fragments of

interest ; and with this view, appointed of things, and nearly expelled the

a commission to collect into one place older nations of Europe from the Black Sea ; and the Portuguese disco- elegant arabesques, the bas-reliefs and

the mutilated tablets of marble, the very in the end of the fifteenth cen

other sculptures that marked the origin tury of the passage to India by the and history of the colony. The tumuli, Cape of Good Hope, contributed to which up to this period had been comdivert commerce into new channels. mon property, were taken under the

The Turks continued to be the_so- protection of Government. For hundreds vereigns of the Crimea, with a Tar- of years these mounds have proved a tar Khan under them, for nearly mine of wealth to the successive tribes three hundred years, until 1771, when and nations who have followed in the

wake of those who formed them. In they were overthrown and supplanted by the Russians. The Russian fact, the importance of this ancient

Greek colony was only recognised on the sway in the Crimea is again safe for discovery in these tombs, within the last the present, and we own that, with few years, of valuable antiquities and all its faults, we prefer it to the Turk- relics of art testifying to its former ish.

In its existing state the Crimea is “ The local tradition is, that the tufull of reminiscences of its many muli were raised over the remains of the changes and transactions. The sur- rulers who held sway over the colonists; viving Tartar population reminds us

and that the earth was heaped upon of the powerful hordes of invaders

them annually on the anniversary of the who, under Gengis Khan and his

decease of the prince, and for a period of

years corresponding to the rank or resuccessors, threatened to overrun

spect in which its tenant was held, or Europe with a Turanian race. The

the time be had reigned over them : and classical names of places still linger- at this day the successive layers of earth ing around recall the glories of an- heaped on each succeeding year can be cient Greece, and the struggles of traced; a thin coating of rushes, seathe mighty Mithridates ; while the se- weed, charcoal or other substance having pulchral monuments, such as abound been apparently first put down, with the in the neighbourhood of Kertch, re- view probably of preventing the moisveal glimpses of other nations, which ture of the fresh soil permeating that add a more solemn interest to the below, and thus displacing it. The thick

greatness."

usually from one to three feet, according rampart meet, which extends North to to the height of the mounds : which are the Sea of A zuf, and South-East to the to be seen of all sizes, varying in circum- Bosporus, just above Nymphæum. It ference from ten to four hundred feet, was probably the ancient boundary of and having an elevation of from five to the territory of Panticapæum and of the one bundred and fifty. A tumulus four kingdom of the Bosporus, before the hundred by one hundred feet, not an conquest of Nymphæum and Theudosia. uncommon size, would give in cubic Within the rampart, 150 paces to the measure three millions of cubic feet of East, there is another monument of the earth and stone to form the sepulchre ; same kind, but unfinished. It consists for they are usually composed of surface of a circular esplana 500 paces lo

round, soil, broken pottery, stone, and in fact and 166 feet in diameter, with an extedebris of every sort.

rior covering of Cyclopean masonry, After these tombs had long been high, of which there are only five layers.

built of worked stones 3 feet long and left a prey to the curiosity or cupidity But the greatest discovery has been at of all who chose to open them, the

the hill called by the Tartars Kul-Obo, Russian Government, it has been or the hill of cinders, which is situated seen, had latterly taken pains to outside of the ancient rampart, and 4 explore them and preserve their con- miles from Kertch. Here is a tumulus tents. But it would be tedious to 165 feet in diameter; and as some solnotice the results of the former exca- diers were carrying away from it, in 1830, vations of these tumuli. These were

the stones with which it was covered, already poticed in Mr Seymour's they accidentally opened a passage into book, and are again detailed in that the interior. A vestibule, 6 feet square, of Dr M‘Pherson, now before us.

led into a tomb 15 feet long and 14 A general summary will be sufficient, broad, which contained bunes of a and we may be allowed to borrow King and Queen, golden and

silver vases,

and other ornaments. Below this tomb it from a valuable book of refer

was another, still richer; and from the ence, Smith's Dictionary of Greek two no less than 120 pounds' weight of and Roman Geography, voce“ Panti- gold ornaments are said to have been capæum :

extracted. From the forms of the letters “ Foundations of ancient buildings and

found here, as well as from other circumheaps of brick and pottery, are still scat

stances, it is supposed that the tomb was tered over the bill of Mithridates ; but

erected not later than the fourth century the most remarkable ancient remains are

B.C.” the numerous tumuli round Kertch, in which many valuable works of art bave We now proceed to notice the rebeen discovered, and of which a full ac- searches of Dr M‘Pherson himself, count is given in the works mentioned who was placed at the head of the below. The most extraordinary of these medical staff attached to the Foreign tumuli are those of the Kings, situated legions raised by Government during at the mountain called Altum-Obo, or the Russian war, and employed in the golden mountain, by the Tartars. the Crimea. His leisure time while One of the tumuli is in the form of a

at Kertch was laudably employed in cone, 100 feet high, and 450 feet in dia. meter, and cased on its exterior with

the investigations which he has now large blocks of stone cubes of 3 or 4 given to the public in a work of feet, placed without cement or mortar. much elegance and interest. This remarkable monument has been at

The methods which have prevailed all times the subject of mysterious le- among different nations of disposing geuds, but the entrance to it was not of their dead, have always been a discovered till 1832. This entrance led subject of much attraction, which has to a gallery, constructed of layers of latterly assumed a new importance worked stone without cement, 60 feet from the careful and scientific prinlong and 10 feet bigh, at the

end of which ciples on which it has been investiwas a vaulted chamber, 35 feet higli, and 20 feet in diameter, the floor of which gated, particularly in connection with was 10 feet below the floor of the en

the north of Europe. We are afraid trance. This chamber, however, was

that the recent death of Mr John empty, though on the ground was a large Mitchell Kemble, cut off suddenly in square stone, on which a sarcophagus the prime of life, and in the ardent might have rested. This tumulus stands pursuit of his favourite studies, has at å spot where two branches of a long deprived us, at least in a great degree

were

of a work which was promised from rounding the building, there was what his pen on this topic; and we know now appeared to be scroll-work much of no antiquary who is qualified singly defaced, in which birds, grotesque fig. to do what Mr Kemble would have

ures, and flowers, could still be traced. done. The impulse, however, has Two figures on horseback-a person in been given, and the accumulation authority, and his attendant

sketched, in black, on the wall opposite from various quarters of the different

the entrance. Slung on the shoulders facts which new discoveries are con

of the latter could be traced a bow and stantly suggesting, will carry us in quiver of arrows (the Scytho-Grecian time to some satisfactory results. bow and arrows are a common emblem

However general the ctice of on the coins of Phanagoria), and he held cremation may have been among the in his hand a long javelin, also a formid. northern pagan nations, and how- able weapon in those days. The gold ever much we may be inclined with coin of the period, found in this locality, Mr Kemble to consider interment, and now in the British Museum, repregenerally speaking, as an effect of

sents the griffin holding the javelin in

his mouth. Christianity, at least among the Teu

“On the bas-reliefs of the Bosphorus, tonic tribes, there are authentic instances of the practice of pagan

the representation of an equestrian fig

ure, attended by a youth, is very freburial in the earliest ages among quent. In the right and the left side of vations inhabiting Europe or the ad- the wall of the inner chamber there were joining regions of Asia. The well

recesses, resembling doors which had known description by Herodotus, been closed up. The workmen were B. IV., sec. 72, of the Scythian mode directed to remove this masonry ; but it of burial, particularly in the case of was so exceedingly strong, that we found the Scythian kings, connects the prac- it an easier matter to break the stones tice directly with the neighbourhood than to remove them from their places. of the Crimea, and is referred to by Stretched across the entrance of the Dr M‘Pherson in this point

of view.

recess on the right hand side, about midOf whatever race the Scythians way, was a human skeleton entire ; a

coarse lachrymatory, and something like may have been, it seems to be thought

an incense jar, but broken, was found that they communicated their mode under the neck. In the recess on the of disposing of the dead to the Greek left side the skeleton of a horse was discolonists who settled on their shores, covered in a similar position. The frethough apparently the prevailing quency of our finding the entire skeleGreek custom was to burn rather tons and perfect bones of animals, more than to bury the dead.

There seems

especially those of the horse, which to be little evidence of burning among

could always be ascertained by the teeth, the Crimean tombs.

appeared to us very remarkable.

“I am much indebted to Mr Kemble, We have already referred to the tumuli which diversify the neighbour- logical subjects is well known, for the

whose profound knowledge in archæohood of Kertch. Dr M‘Pherson's following remarks on the same interestresearches in these were not very ing and curious subject : successful. They had already been “Burial of the horse is first mentioned rifled of their most valuable stores. by Tacitus as a part of the funeral rite But on removing his workmen to an of the Germanic races ; but it was comundulating ridge, extending from mon to the ancient Scythians, as Mons Mithridates to the Altyn Obo learn from Herodotus ; to the Tschudi or Mountain of Gold, he met with

of the Altai (Ledebour Reise, i. 231); better results. The account of some

the Tartars of the Crim (Lindner, p. of these we shall present to our read- 92); to the Keltic tribes in Gaul and

Britain ; to the Franks, as evidenced in ers. Having reached a small subter

Childeric's grave; the Saxons, as proved ranean temple near the Golden Moun- by constant excavation ; and the Northtain, but which he found already men, as we read in all the Norse Sagas, explored, he thus describes it :- and find in innumerable Norse graves. “Over the inner entrance, possibly

we

a