indirectly to attack the Empire of the East. Vladimir, accordingly, laid siege to it; but the inhabitants offered a most valiant resitance. For six months Vladimir in vain essayed to take his Sebastopol. Thousands of his men perished in the attempt-and it was only by the treachery of one of the Chersonites-a priest-that he finally succeeded in capturing it.

Cherson taken, Vladimir's ambitious designs became apparent; for Nestor, the Russian annalist, recounts that he forthwith sent this message to Basil and Constantine, Emperors of the East: "I have taken one of your most celebrated cities; but, since, I understand that you have a sister still unprovided for-I wish you to know that I desire to marry her. Should you take it into your heads to deny me her, I shall do for your capital what I have done for Cherson." The brother emperors, too much afraid of this redoubtable northern wooer to refuse the request of Vladimir, sent their sister Anna to Cher

son.

Here Vladimir was baptized, and, the same day, married Anna. Thus Cherson, among the other strange sights it saw, witnessed the first friendly alliance of the Byzantine with this mighty northern empire, and the baptism of the first Christian Czar of Russia: it took place in the Church of St. Sophia.

And now this little Republic, with all its romance, must vanish from our pages and from the history of the world. An industrious population and an active commerce had given it a long prosperity. But it found rivals, as we shall see, with whom it was unable to compete, in the wily Genoese. These shackled its trade; and, falling at the same time under the baleful Monghol influence, it fell. In the sixteenth century, its walls and towers alone remained as witnesses of its former magnificence. More recently, Koch observed only a few mounds of stones lying one upon another. Its last vestige has, in all probability, by this time, quite vanished. Within its walls was heard the busy hum of traffic -commerce gathered all its luxuries, art, all its splendors, to enrich and adorn it, at a time when painted savages roamed the British Isles, and long ere the Roman legions disturbed the forests of Old Gaul. Now the booming of the French and English cannon resounds over its silent graves!

While these events were transpiring

in the cities of the Southern Crimea, the Peninsula itself was not free from invasions on the part of its northern neighbors. During the early centuries of our era-while Europe was one vast battle-ground; while, from the gloomy forests of the North, and the limitless steppes of the East, tribe after tribe, race after race, was rushing avalanchelike on the decaying civilization of Rome -various straggling Gothic and Hunnic tribes-off-streams from the great current of population-would seem to have entered the Crimea. Remains of them exist in the southwestern mountain chain, which long bore the name of Gothi; and Procopius even mentions Cherson as a Gothic city. Attila, the Scourge of God, placed his eldest son upon the throne of the Crimea.

About the fifth century, the name Turk began first to be heard in Europe; and for many hundred years the history of the Crimea runs in the same channel with the general stream of Turkish story. The special tribe that figured about this time was the Khazars. From the seventh to the tenth century, they are the great name in the whole of Southeastern Europe. They made themselves so formidable, that the proud Byzantine emperors were glad to cultivate their acquaintance. Constantine Copronymus allied himself by marriage with Irene, daughter of one of the Khazar Khans. Their influence in the Crimea is proved by the name Khazaria, which the whole Peninsula long bore.

In the ninth and tenth centuries, the power of the Khazars was broken up by that series of redoubtable Grand Princes who so brilliantly illustrate the early Russian annals. The Khazar rule was broken up, but only to make way for a still more formidable Turkish tribethe Patzinaks. They seem to have held dominion over the Crimea for a century and a half-not without considerable happiness and prosperity. To them succeeded the Commanes, only to be overwhelmed by the mighty Golden Horde, from the plains of Tartary— that Golden Horde afterwards so well known throughout all Europe, and with whose fate the history of the Crimea, for two hundred and fifty years, became bound up.

Like a whirlwind, across Europe sweeps Genghis Khan! Originally the disinherited chief of a tribe of the Black

Tartars, on the borders of the Chinese Wall, he made himself the founder of the most gigantic dominion of the middle ages, and, perhaps, the most ruthless devastator the world has ever seen. He pushed his conquests as far as the Volga, and gave his western possessions into the command of his grandson, Batou Khan, as Viceroy. Of this mighty empire, whereof Russia, Poland, Hungary were members,-and which, with something of sarcasm, Batou Khan called his Kiptshak-"Hollow Tree"the Crimea formed a small part. For two and a half centuries it continued to be governed as an apanage by under khans, who derived their power from the grand khans of the Kiptshak. It was then that the peninsula took the name of Crim, or Little Tartary. These Tartars-Tatars is the proper form of the name, but the Churchmen of the middle ages would persist in perceiving some intimate connection between those redoubtable Monghols and Tartarusso Tartars let them be; these Tartars would appear to have behaved with considerable tolerance to the subdued peoples. Many revolts, however, chequer the annals of this period. One of the principal of these was a civil war, headed by the powerful chief Noghaï, who had married Euphrosine, natural daughter of the Emperor Michael Paleologus. In the conflict, Noghaï was defeated and slain, and the tribe which he led was scattered over the northern steppes of the Crimea. The descendants of these Noghaïs, or Nogay Tartars, survive, on those very steppes, even to this day.

Towards the fifteenth century this mighty Monghol power began to wane. Like a meteor the all-conquering Tamerlane gleams into history. The Tartar Khan is hurled from his throne. About the same time, too, appears Ivan the Terrible, to free Russia from the Mongol yoke, and trample their authority under his feet. The gigantic Kiptshak is dismembered, and the small remains of its almost limitless dominion fall into the Khanats of the Crimea, Kasan and Astrachan.

A descendant of Tamerlane ascends the throne of the khans; and to prevent the possibility of any of the house of Genghis ever assuming the sovereignty, he causes the entire family to be put to death. But it was fated that the stock of Tamerlane should not take root in

the soil; for, from the universal massacre of the house of Genghis, a youth, named Devlet, at that time about ten years of age, was saved by a shepherd called Gherai, and brought up by him in his humble home, as his own son, tending the cattle of his foster-father, and ignorant of his high lineage. The lad grew to be a man; and, amid a whirlwind of revolutions, while the disaffected tribes were anxiously in search of a prince of the house of Genghis, Gherai produced Devlet. Accordingly he was raised to the throne, and all the reward which Gherai asked was, that Devlet should assume the name Gherai in connection with his own. This, accordingly, was done by his successors for three centuries and a half.

And now for more than forty years the Crimea forms the centre of an independent monarchy, under Devlet Gherai, "who," remarks Mr. Milner, “inaugurated a new era in its history, and whose authority was acknowledged over a wide extent of the adjoining continent. He proved himself a remarkable man, able to rectify the confusion, and govern prosperously a people intractable by natural temperament, the absence of education, and rendered still more so by the license incident to repeated political revolutions. He witnessed a great change in the political position of Eastern Europe, though not its full effect. In 1453, the Greek empire fell; Constantinople came under the dominion of the Ottoman Turks; and the keys of the Black Sea passed into the hands of Mohammed II. Christendom, in its alarm, thought of a crusade against the 'Father of Conquest;' and, strangely enough, in 1465, Pope Paul II. sent an ambassador to the Tartar Khan, to invite his aid in the project. The Pontiff must have thought him, in no slight degree, a lax Musselman, to calculate upon his joining the Christian powers in a holy war against a co-religionist. But non-interference was a maxim with Hadji Devlet. The next year he died; and under his successors the Khanate lost its short-lived independence, till the mock restoration of it in 1774."

During these centuries the trade of the world was in the hands of the republics of Venice and Genoa. Eagerly did they both contend for a footing at Constantinople, and the commerce of the Euxine. In the twelfth century the

Venetians would appear to have been the most favored of the two; but in 1261 the Genose placed Michael Paleologus on the throne of the Cæsars, and he, to show his gratitude, gave to them the almost exclusive trade of the Black Sea. About the same time, the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo Polo-adventurous young Genoesevisit the Crimea-are well receiveddiscern, with their keen, commercial eyes, the vast importance of the harbors of the Southern Crimea as stoppingplaces for their ships to and from the East-bring back a favorable report to their countrymen, a few of whom emigrate hither, and so begins the connection of the Genoese with the Crimea. We recollect the city of Theodosia, which formed one of the chief cities of the Bosporanic dominion. It fell during the early centuries of our era; and when Arrian visited it he found only some Greek inscriptions on its mouldering walls. Here the Genoese established themselves-humbly begging, cap in hand, leave to settle, and a` small tract of land from the Tartar Khan. Never were such wily fellows as these same Genoese. Little by little they extended their domain and their influence, till soon they had engrossed the entire port of Theodosia. Stores and magazines arose as by magic-with more than Grecian splendor it revived, and soon its walls shut in a population of over one hundred thousand inhabitants. This second Constantinople received the name of Kaffa, the Infidel. Catherine II. afterwards restored its ancient appellation of Theodosia, and Theodosia or Kaffa it continues to this day.

About the middle of the fourteenth century the Genoese acquired the possession of Cembalo. They found it a very fine harbor-Bella Chiava, and hence the name of Balaklava. This obtained, they soon afterwards united it with Kaffa, by the possession of the entire south coast. These shrewd commercialists thus came to monopolize the rich Chinese and Indian trade; for, previous to the discovery of a passage by the Cape of Good Hope from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the commerce of the Orient was mainly brought by caravan to the shores of the Caspian, and thence by the river Phasisthat ancient Phasis, renowned in the story of the Argonauts-to the Euxine,

where it was met by the galleys of the Italians. 66 By means of these enterprising speculators, the silks, spices, and perfumes of the 'Georgeous East,' aromatic and medicinal drugs, rhubarb from Astrachan, with skins, furs, hemp, flax, and iron from Siberia, were dispatched to the Western markets. Fine white wax was one of the most valuable of the Oriental exported products, being in constant demand, at a high rate, in all the great cities of Christendom, to be manufactured into candles for the gorgeous ceremonials of the Greek and Latin worship. Salt, from the inexhaustible stores of Perekop, was sent to Constantinople and the Archipelago, with salt fish and caviar, through the domain of the Eastern church, as allowed provender for fastdays."

The Genoese won the confidence and friendship of the Tartars, Devlet Gherai regarding them as the heralds of civilization.

But, though they came as humble factors, and in a guise as peaceful as that in which the much-injured Colonel Kinney approached Nicaragua, they soon aspired to rule in the land which had welcomed them.

Devlet Gherai, after a brilliant reign of over forty years, died, leaving eight

sons.

The sixth of these sons, Mengli Gherai, was a partisan of the Genoese; and they sought to raise him to the throne. This was an interference the Tartars could not brook. Too weak themselves to contend with their formidable guests, they appealed to Mohammed II., the "Father of Conquest," who was now sitting in triumph, at Constantinople, on the throne of the Cæsars. Mohammed sent over an army to the aid of the Tartars, and, though the Italians made a most determined resistance, yet their power was completely broken and abolished. Speedy and most terrible was their extermination. From one strong-hold after another they were driven, till every vestige of them was swept away. The magnificent Kaffa itself-over whose gates stood the marble lions, the symbol of the republic's power-was utterly destroyed, and forty thousand of its Genoese inhabitants were transported to populate a suburb of Constantinople, where they were soon confounded with the other slaves of the Ottoman Empire.

Some miles south of Simpheropol, the present capital of the Crimea, rises the mountain of Tchadir-dagh, with an elevation of over a mile; it is the highest peak of that range which runs along the south coast, east and west, for some hundred miles, and meets the eye of the mariner far off on the ebbless Pontic. In this mountain is a cavern, into which you crawl on hands and knees. It bears the name of Foul Kouba. Within, you see, by the dim candle-light, that the ground is strewn with bones and skulls. Here, driven from every other lurking-place, some hundreds of the Genoese took refuge, thinking to escape the Tartar vengeance. But in vain: they were discovered by some Tartar Pelissier, and literally smoked to death. So perished the last of the Genoese!

The Crimea thus became an apanage of the Sultan's vast empire, governed by Khans, under his authority. A series of these rude, ruthless men, interrupted by the wise and good Gazi Gherei and Hadji Selim, misruled the Crimea for many years. Soliman, the Magnificent, closed the Black Sea to all but his own subjects; and for three centuries it remained one vast Ottoman lake.

The Crimea, under the Tartar domination, was a land of romance to the orientals. It furnishes the scene of not a few of the Thousand and One Arabian stories. Romantic, indeed, must the history of these days have been. Think of the races then brought togetherthe Italians at Kaffa, the Tartars at Bakshi-Serai-the Catholic and the Mohammedan, the oriental despot and the western adventurer! The traveler in that strange country stumbles continually on the memorials of tales which would make the fortune of a novelist.

In all the picturesque Tartar city of Bakshi-Serai," The Palace of Gardens," there is no object more beautiful than the beautiful "Fountain of Tears." There is a light of love on its falling

waters.

Once on a time, a Tartar Khan invaded Poland, as Tartar Khans were used to do; and, from Poland, he bore away Marie, the lovely daughter of the Count Polotsky. She was his prisoner; but he besought her to make him hers. He wooed her with a delicacy quite surprising in a Khan. He gave her grand apartments in his palace, and, good Mussulman as he was, erected for her a

Christian chapel, where mass was said by a Christian priest. Marie was "long to woo;" but we shall never know how far her heart was touched. For, before the Khan himself saw any cause for hope, a jealous Georgian lady—his jilted favorite-no doubt discerning the symptoms of relenting in Marie's heart, stabbed the fair Polack unto death. The Khan was in despair; and acted as became a Khan. He caused all the women in his harem to be instantly executed; and committed the murderess to the attentions of four wild horses, by whom she was torn in pieces. And, having thus relieved his injured soul, the Khan caused a splendid mausoleum to be erected, and therein, at morning and at evening, saluted the memory of his mistress with sighing and weeping. Where the mausoleum stood, stands now the Fountain of Tears.

A more fortunate lover was the Genoese Jefrosin, who wooed the daughter of a Tartar Khan, and won her not only to his heart, but to his faith. She abjured the Koran to wed her infidel, and made him happy. Yet his happiness was as brief as bright. She died after a very few years of wedlock, at the advanced age of eighteen, and her tomb still stands in the fortress of Tchirfert-Kalet.

During the long, dull centuries of the Turkish dominion, we catch a glimpse of one figure in the Crimea, which links the story of that peninsula to our own.

In the year 1602, the fields of the Bashaw Nalbritz were tilled by many slaves. And, among those slaves, was one young Englishman, captured in the Hungarian wars, and bought by the Bashaw, in Constantinople, to do him service in the Crimea.

The Englishman wore about his neck an iron ring with his master's brandjust such a ring as made the heart of Gurth, the swine-herd, chafe in Rotherwood forest, so long ago. For dress, he had only a rude coat of buffalo skin. But he bore about in his breast an unconquerable English spirit. One day, the Bashaw came into the threshingfloor, and found his English slave there alone. The Bashaw was out of temper, and he reviled and smote his servingman. It was a dangerous game for the Bashaw to play, alone there on the threshing-floor. The English slave lifted up his flail, and smote the Bashaw to the earth. Then he hid the

dead Turk beneath the straw of his own grain, put on himself the dead Turk's gay attire, filled a knapsack with the dead Turk's corn, mounted the dead Turk's gallant grey, and rode hastily off to the westward. In sixteen days, this fugitive slave reached Russia, and thence got back to England.

The next year, one Captain Gosnold fitted out an enterprise to the New World; and, of that enterprise, our fugitive was the heart and soul.

Is it a decent regard for consistency, or only the fear of some subtle mischief to her "peculiar institutions," which has so long prevented Virginia from paying due honors to the memory of that fugitive slave, John Smith, President of the Old Dominion, and Admiral of New England?

As the Turkish power waned, the Russian waxed. Peter the Great hankered greatly after the Crimea.

"It is

not land that I want," he used to say, "but sea!" In all his Turkish campaigns he sought to push his sway southwards to the Euxine. The Crimean plains witnessed many a feat of the dashing Mazeppa

"The Ukraine's hetman, calm and bold;" but Peter died, without closing his hand on the prize. It was left for a woman to set this keystone in the arch of Russian dominion.

In 1774, Abdul Hamid signed the treaty of Kainardji - "the glorious treaty of Kainardji," Nicholas styled it; and, on the 8th of April, 1783, Catherine II., Empress of all the Russias, declared the Crimea annexed to her realms.

The Tartar Khans, who had been cosseted by their Turkish sovereigns, were scurvily treated by the Czars, and vanished into the Caucasus, or elsewhere. One of their descendants, Krim Gherai, renounced the faith of Islam, for that of Geneva, was educated at Edinburgh, married a Scotch lady, and, early in the present century, returned to the Crimea, and settled at Simpheropol. His widow died there but the other day; having lived to witness the humiliation of the empire which humbled those who had humbled the ancestors of her lord.

In all its romantic past, the Crimea has seen no drama so grand as that

which is now enacting on its shores. Yet what marvelous things it has witnessed and shared-this small peninsula.

The misty grandeur of Troy; the sunlit glory of Greece; the magnificence of Pontus; the might and majesty of Rome; the gorgeous pageantry of Byzantium; the fury of the Goth; the terrible wrath of the Tartar; the splendor of the Turk; the artifice, the ambition, the audacity of the Russian; and now, the tremendous power of the civilized West!

Three thousand years ago, Troy, the right hand of Asia, advanced against the west, menaced the Hellespont, and the free seas beyond. Against her walls, the confederate princes of Greece brought all their ships and all their powers. Stoutly the Trojans held their own; as stoutly the Greeks, fighting all unconsciously, no doubt, for the Europe yet unborn, pushed on their resolute attack. Ten weary years! but the future was with Greece. And the right hand of the dull despotic East at last was broken.

Now, in our own day, grander armies and grander navies, contending for a future yet more grand, besiege by land and sea the strong hold of a Troy more insolent and mighty. The princes of the West may be no more noble and worthy now, than were those Greek princes of old confederate in Aulis; the struggle may outlast our natural lives; but who can doubt that the great destinies of man are fighting now, as then, for the sovereigns of the sea, and who shall fear the final issue!

A woman's face first gave to poetry the Tauric name. Iphigenia, the pale priestess, stands there by the altar of Cape Parthenium, a symbol forever of the stern sacrificial faith of the past.

A woman's face, too, looks out now upon us, serene and sweet, through the cloud of war, from those Crimean heights. No priestess ministering dreadful rites within the temple of a cruel worship, but a mild messenger of mercy; a comforter, an angel of purity and of peace. The face of Florence Nightingale shines upon those awful scenes of strife; and the battle-field and the hospital are lighted with her smile-the immortal symbol of a redeeming faith and a more glorious future.