It is obvious that no moral philosopher or legislator, no one even unitingin himself the functions of both, would be able to devise a penal code which would be all-sufficient, and which would be applicable to every possible detail in the development of an ever-expanding civilization. New circumstances demand new laws; and the adaptation of new laws to new circumstances is not the least interesting feature in the history of any country. Religious beliefs, religious and other theories of ethics, the attacks of foreign enemies, the growth of commerce, the progress of science, everything which affects the condition of the community, may affect its criminal legislation.

In very primitive tribes murder, robbery, and rape are not crimes—not, at least, in the modern sense. For one tribe to attack another by surprise, to slaughter its men, to appropriate its land, and to ravish or enslave its women was, and in some places still is, very meritorious conduct. The first approach towards the reprobation of murder is to be found in the ancient blood-feud which, however, resembles quite as much the ferocity of the wild beast deprived of its young as the indignation of the civilized human being at an attack upon the general security of life. The family of the slain assumed the right to exact vengeance of the slayer and his kin if members of the same tribe as themselves; and the earliest form of vengeance was bloodshed. This was not modified until men had arrived at the notion of property distinguishable from that which was held in common by the tribe—a very important stage in the progress of human affairs.

It is well established that the tenure of land in severalty is of later date than tenure by the tribe or community at large; and as soon as the claim of any individual to any particular piece of land was recognized, in any form, the right of property in movables must have been recognized also, if indeed the latter did not precede the former. Sooner or later the ownership of certain families was admitted in the case of plots of ground and flocks and herds, the ownership of particular persons in the case of arms and armour and the implements of agriculture. Hence arose the practice of compounding with the avengers of blood. The relatives of the slain agreed to accept cattle, or any movable goods of which they might stand in need, as an equivalent for the life of the kinsman whom they had lost. But Governments which had advanced very little on the path of civilization perceived that the loss of a tribesman was a loss to the community, because—if for no other reason—it represented a diminution of force in a conflict with a rival tribe. When a fine was paid for murder, therefore, a portion of it only was allotted to the kin of the person murdered, and the remainder to the king or other governing power.

As soon as the state had thus claimed a share of the blood-fine, wer, or τroιvη, the foundation of the criminal law had been laid—a distinction had been drawn between injuries affecting the individual alone and injuries affecting the community also. It was perhaps only natural that, when movables were accepted as compensation for a life held to be forfeited for murder, the wrongful appropriation of movables should be punishable by death—a not uncommon penalty in many primitive laws. Extreme severity of punishment for all offences (except homicide) committed within the boundaries of the tribe is indeed the characteristic of all the earliest attempts to deal with crime. The idea of the uncivilized man is that the most ferocious chastisement is the most certain deterrent; and as he has won most of that which he possesses by taking it forcibly from others, he is not disposed to attribute to his fellow tribesmen any very high respect for property in the abstract.

Nevertheless, with the tenure of land in severalty, and the acquisition of some personalty, was necessarily developed, in one form or other, the idea of protection for life and property in general. But small tribes continued to be engaged in frequent conflicts with their neighbours; and the principles of right and wrong which were applied to the various individuals composing any one tribe were in practice, if not in theory, long disregarded in dealings with the stranger. Outside a certain circle of no very great extent killing was still no murder, taking no theft or robbery, capture or violation of a woman no rape, in the modern sense. When tribes became united into nations, the rivalry of clan against clan was not immediately extinguished; and the sentiments of the robber chieftain coexisted with governments which sanctioned laws for ⅛e repression of robbers and their deeds of violence. National growth out of these discordant elements is to be traced, with the greatest clearness, in the marvellously complete series of records preserved in the English Public Record Office, and not least in those which concern the Scottish and Welsh borders.

The law of development is not restricted to one island, or to races speaking one particular language. Its range appears to be as wide as history, and is sometimes to be detected even where history can hardly be said to exist. If, for instance, we compare the Latin word virtus, the Greek word dvδρ∈ια, and the Cymric word gwroldéb, with the English word virtue, we find a curious light thrown upon the progress of human opinion. The first three all had originally the same meaning—“virility;” and all three acquired precisely the same secondary signification— “courage.” The reason, of course, was that in the most primitive times courage was the one great quality which above all others commanded approbation. The want of a moral attribute so universally approved was in those days a crime, and the imbelles, or cowards, were, if Tacitus is to be believed, subjected by the Germans to a punishment sufficiently horrible. They were thrown under a hurdle and smothered in filth. But now the word virtue, which once had the special meaning of strength of muscle and nerve in the man, has (if any special meaning at all) that of chastity in the woman.

Brave law-breakers, in past times, have not only believed themselves to be good men and true, but have also had the sympathy of great numbers of their fellow-countrymen. Indeed, if we regard the history of criminal legislation and of crime in England, we find the ideas of the primitive tribesman steadily resisting the advance of civilization, retreating very slowly from position to position, and rarely yielding one without a long and desperate struggle. A most prominent example of this tenacity was in the crime of forcible entry, which hardly ceased to be common before the 18th century. When valour was the greatest or only drtue, one clan took land by force from another, and clansman differed from clansman only in the greater or less vigour and courage shown in making the appropriation. Long after this half-savage condition of society, it remained a maxim of the English law that there was no legal possession of land without actual seisin. The law, indeed, would not allow its right hand to know that which was done by its left. It forbade forcible entries in the reign of Richard IL, while forcible entries were an essential part of its theory. As late even as the reign of William IV. the fiction of a forcible entry continued to be one of the chief implements of the conveyancer’s art. Without the

“common recovery” he would have been unable to carry on the ordinary routine of his business; and the basis of that fictitious action at law was that one person had wrongfully disseised another of his land.

The much abused Court of Star-Chamber owed its definite constitution under the Tudors to a very laudable desire for the repression of forcible entries and certain other kindred offences. Nor was it altogether unsuccessful in attaining the object for which it was established. Those private feuds in which the nobles, like the heads of tribes, had previously delighted, began to die out when private armies could no longer be kept on foot under the name of retainers, or supplied with uniforms under the name of liveries and tokens. Yet the fact that the Star-Chamber did not entirely put an end to forcible entries is a proof that even the most vigorous legislation is not all-powerful against the human nature and the surrounding circumstances with which it may have to deal. Those circumstances, and even that nature, may to some extent be changed, for were it otherwise the British empire and British civilization could now have no existence. But there is a reciprocal action and reaction of laws upon society and of society upon laws. No edict or statute ever made a sudden and complete alteration in the manners of a whole nation, though the growing wisdom of a nation may frequently have suggested a law, and though a well-devised law may have gradually fostered the growth of national wisdom. If it is true that nemo repente fait turpissimus it is no less true that nemo repente fait honestissimus.

The modern security of life and property of every description represents the triumph of new ideas over old. There is or was a popular delusion that the savage was noble, that while his manners were simple his nature was honest, and that he abhorred all such mean arts as those commonly attributed to the huckster and the trader. The truth is that his misdeeds were limited to his own particular sphere of action, which was excessively small, and that if he did not commit some of the offences known in our own time it was because he had not the opportunity. Fraud has never increased in equal proportion with the increase of trade and civilization. It infected commerce at the very beginning, and existed during the darkness of the Middle Ages in every form then possible. It may and it sometimes does assume new shapes as society groups itself anew, as occupations and the relations of man to man are changed. But force is its near relative and ally, and it flourishes in times of violence and anarchy. It made itself conspicuous throughout the age of chivalry, though poets and romance writers have attempted to hide it away. With infinite difficulty has civilized mankind so far gained the victory over its own primitive nature as to concur, with some approach to unanimity, in reprobation of the forgermonk, the brigand-knight, and the man who regarded a woman as a chattel and a tempting object for appropriation.

It is most necessary to bear in mind the contrast between the habits or ideas of one period and of another, if we wish to estimate correctly the position of the criminal in modern society, or the alleged uniformity of human actions to be discovered in statistics. There is, no doubt, some truth in the statement that in a modern civilized country—Great Britain, for example—the statistics of one year bear a very strong resemblance to the statistics of another in many particulars. But a little reflection leads to the conclusion that there is nothing at all marvellous in such coincidences, and that they do not prove human nature to be unalterable, or circumstances to be unchangeable. They only show what might have been predicted beforehand, that human beings of the same race, remaining in circumstances approximately the same, continue to act upon nearly the same motives and to display nearly the same weaknesses.

The statistics of a quarter of a century, of half a century, even of a whole century (if we had them complete for so long a period), could tell us but little of those subtle changes in human organization which have come to pass in the lapse of ages, and the sum of which has rendered life in Britain in the 19 th century so different as it is from life in the 6th. Some of the earliest statisticians, indeed (and their science is of very recent origin), did an injustice both to themselves and to their favourite study through their own enthusiasm. They were eager to claim for numbers all an:l more than all that had been claimed by the Pythagoreans of old. Not content with praising the virtues of numbers in general, they appeared to believe that the particular numbers of a particular period would suffice for the discovery of social and political principles of universal application. They found certain uniformities in an area so bounded, and a time so short, as to bear to the previous existence of the whole earth and its inhabitants about the same proportion that a drop of water bears to the ocean; and they assumed that they had found a law or laws of a range co-extensive with human existence. But this exaggeration does not impair the real value of the statistical method or of some of the facts which it has brought to light. It has supplied us with some generalizations which are demonstrably true within certain limits, and which constitute useful elements of comparison with others discoverable elsewhere. It has not established that human conduct, regarded as a great whole, is absolutely invariable, but it has supplied a powerful instrument for an inquiry into the conditions by which variation may be determined.

If, for instance, we look at the statistics of homicide and suicide in England during any ten recent years we perceive that the figures of any one year very little exceed or fall below the general average. Yet no inference could be more erroneous than that homicide has always borne the same proportion to population in England as at present, for in the reign of Edward III. there were in proportion to population at least sixteen cases of homicide to every one which occurs in our own time. On the other hand, according to modern statistics, the number of male suicides is far greater than the number of female; and the inference that the number of male suicides always has been greater is at least supported by records as early as the middle of the 17th century. Again, the homicides in one country may be and are far more numerous than in another, among equal populations; but nowhere does there exist any exception to the rule that there are more male suicides than female. Thus it is clear that any suggestion of uniformity offered by statistics requires the most careful verification before being accepted as even approximately true; but it is also clear that the suggestion may be of the highest value in leading us to distinguish those cases in which uniformity really exists from those in which uniformity is only apparent.

The criminal statistics of any one country and period should be carefully examined by the light of history, and of any relevant details which can be procured from other parts of the world. Only by the aid of the adequate information thus to be acquired can criminal legislation ever be wise and effective, no matter what definition of crime may be accepted by the legislators. A knowledge of human nature in the widest sense, not excepting, indeed, some of the principles of physiology, may give some power of discriminating between the mutable and the immutable, the possible and the impossible, in human affairs. Without it, well-meaning efforts to improve the condition of society may be not only unsuccessful but even mischievous. Without it, disappointment is apt to follow upon the failure of some apparently well-conceived law to effect the purpose for which it was devised. The disposition inherited from past ages can (in some fields of action and in some individuals at least) as little be changed by the fiat of a Government, as the ebb and flow of the sea can be controlled by the word of a king. But, nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that judicious lawgivers may gradually effect a salutary change in the manners of a people.

One of the most remarkable illustrations of uniformity in the phenomena of crime is one which may be regarded also as an illustration of the influence of past conditions of society upon the present. As the human embryo passes through sundry stages of an inferior state of existence, so, after birth, the human being is before the age of thirty more apt to fall into courses which we now regard as criminal (but which the savage considered laudable) than the human being of more advanced years. This, like the rule of the sexes in suicide, is a rule having no exception at any time or in any country concerning which it is possible to obtain information. But even here the proportions are not absolutely invariable, though the general law holds universally good. From various causes, of which one is the abolition of transportation, another the establishment of reformatories, the criminal age has perceptibly risen in England since the year 1851. So also, although the general law that men are more prone to commit suicide than women is altogether beyond dispute, the proportions of the sexes vary considerably in suicide and in various crimes in different countries, and apparently also at different times in the same country. Hence we may infer that there is hardly any social change of which the human species need absolutely despair, though some changes may be far more easily brought about, and may more reasonably be the subject of legislation, than others. But all legislation should be adapted to the possibilities of the existing generation.

A very curious feature of crimes in the modern sense, though one susceptible of very easy explanation, is the effect upon them of the seasons. Those which are prompted by the animal passions are most common in the summer months; larceny, and offences wholly or partly prompted by want, in the winter months. As might also have been predicted a priori, theft increases in times of adversity, and various minor offences, such as drunkenness, in times of prosperity. The metropolitan police returns, indeed, show a very complete descending scale of drunkenness, beginning with a maximum on that day of the week on which wages are paid, and ending with a minimum six days afterwards.

Insanity, in its relation to crime, is a subject which might appropriately be considered in connection with the tendencies inherited by each human being at birth, but cannot be adequately discussed here. Suffice it to say that as youth, when the instincts and passions are at their strongest, is the period at which the human being is most inclined to commit crimes in general (as now understood), so old age, when both the bodily powers and the intellect are decaying, is the period at which one particular class of sexual offences is most frequently committed; and there is good reason to suppose that persons committing them in earlier years are weak-minded also. Kleptomania and homicidal monomania are asserted by medical theorists to be forms of mental aberration. This doctrine, however, though perhaps sufficiently well-founded, can hardly be established upon the basis of a very wide induction, but only by a subtle reasoning from particular instances upon which it is now impossible to enter.

With regard to the very complex subjects of the prevention and punishment of crime, it maybe suggested that the broader the view taken by legislators the more likely is...

Three parts of the Crimea are a continuation of the steppe of South Russia, the remainder on the south and south-east coast consisting of hills and mountains of calcareous rocks that have been disturbed by volcanic agency, and exhibit in various parts diorite, melaphyre, aphrite, diabase, amygdaloid, and diorite porphyry. The volcanic eruptions are more manifest near Cape St George, and at Cape Laspy, Kastropolo, Aloupka, Yalta, and Byouk Lambat, and have formed the eminences at Ayou-dagh, Kastel, Ouragou, and Kara-dagh, and to the south of Sympheropol and Kara-sou-bazar. The mountains rise almost abruptly from the sea to an altitude in some parts of fully 4000 feet, the highest, called by the ancients Trapezus, “the Table Mountain” from the flatness of its summit, and now called by the Tatars Tchadyr-dagh, “Tent Mountain,” being 4800 feet above the level of the sea. Stalactite and stalagmite caverns are numerous, two of the most remarkable being on the Tchadyr-dagh. Criumetopon, the “ram’s head” of Strabo, was at the south part of the range, and may have been Cape Aïa to the east of Balaclava, or the range of cliffs that extends from that promontory to Aïtodor. The coast of the mountainous region is exceedingly picturesque, and numerous vineyards have been formed along its sunny slopes; the soil consists of decomposed rock, the chief component part being slate clay. The mud baths on the sea shore at Saky are celebrated for the relief they afford in cases of rheumatism, paralysis, skin diseases, &c.; there is a hospital for naval and military patients, and a private bathing establishment. In the peninsula of Kertch are clusters of mud volcanoes near the town of Kertch and village of Yeny-Kaleh, where the mud, quite cold and black, bubbles actively but silently out of the earth; it is not utilized.

The principal rivers are the Salghyr, its tributary the Kara-sou, the Belbeck, Katcha, Alma, and Boulganack. They all rise on the northern slopes of the mountain range; their beds are almost dry in autumn, but they become rapid and dangerous torrents in spring.

The general climate from the end of March to December is most salubrious and delightful, the heat being moderate and the nights cool and serene; but the summers are irregular, the thermometer sometimes rising to 90° and 100° Fahr, in the shade—the mean annual temperature at Sympheropol being 50°, at Sevastopol 55°, and at Yalta 58°. The weather in the steppe and mountainous parts differ, the former being subject to high winds, hailstorms (sometimes destructive), snowstorms, and frost. In summer long droughts prevail, completely parching up the verdure, which in July and August is quite burnt up. In some winters the mountain tops are covered with snow, which continues on the higher summits until May, yet their temperature is moderate. Ice is rarely seen on the south slopes, and snow seldom falls, the winters throughout being mild, though rains are heavy and winds variable. The greater heats, which last from May to September, are endurable owing to sea and land breezes, the prevalent winds being S.E and E., when the weather is clear and dry; S. and S. W. winds are invariably accompanied with rain. The autumn, particularly in August and September, is unhealthy on the sea-shore of the south coast, fever and ague being prevalent but not dangerous; an altitude, however, of 40 feet or 50 feet is security against attack. Dense fogs occur in March, April, and May, sometimes lasting many hours, but they seldom overspread the land.

In ancient times the Crimea, the Tauric Chersonese, produced a great quantity of corn, which was exported to various parts of Greece; we read that 2,100,000 medimni (a medimnus =12 gallons) were sent in one year from Theodosia to Athens by Leucon, king of the Bosphorus (393-353 b.c. ). The population is now in some measure supplied with com from Russia, the drought that has prevailed for many years preventing the district from being a grain-producing country; but where the land is capable of irrigation it is grown, and there is rich pasturage; much good land, however, remains uncultivated from a dearth of manual labour. The grains sown are wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize, millet, and peas; flax and tobacco are also planted. The vine overspreads the declivities of the south coast, from the valley of the Boulganack to Aloushta, and again at Soudak and Theodosia, 13,500 acres yielding annually about 3,050,000 gallons of wine, sold new at 4s. 10d. to 5s. 6d. the vedro (2 , 86 gallons). A small proportion is exported. Orchards are interspersed with the vineyards, but the best apples are the produce of the valleys of the Alma, Belbeck, Katcha, and Salghyr, the estimated value of the supply sent yearly into Russia being £150,000. The more common indigenous trees and shrubs are the Tauric pine, juniper, yew, oak, beech, which is abundant and attains a large size, elm, wych elm, maple, ash, poplar, and fir; the last grows well on the highlands and on the south slopes, where it reaches a great height; the Babylonian willow and tamarind grow thickly by the side of streams; there is also the hide sumach (Rhus coriaria), hawthorn, honey-suckle, barbariss, and the dog-rose, which becomes quite a tree, bearing white, pink, and yellow blossoms. The wild fruitbearing trees are the mountain ash, kyzyl, a small red plum, the apple, pear, and vine; it is said, that the wild olive is occasionally to be found. In the gardens of the south coast large numbers of plants have been acclimatized, and trees of all kinds grow to perfection, especially the cypress and magnolia. Wild flowers, such as the white and violet crocus and sweet-scented violet, appear as early as February, lilies of the valley and white and sweet peas being plentiful in May, and in summer the woods are filled with peonies, Asphodelus taurica, veronica, geranium, and orchids. In the highlands the vegetation is always vigorous. In July they are covered with Thymus, Sideritis, Galium, Myosotis, and Odontarrhena, Gentiana cruciata, and Symphytum lauricum. In the gardens are cultivated the following fruits :—melons, karpouz, “water-melon,” large, of excellent flavour, and greatly consumed; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, and currants; pomegranates, pears, figs, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries, mulberries, quinces, walnuts, almonds, hazel-nuts, and chesnuts; also many sorts of vegetables.

Wolves, foxes, weazels, and hares are about the steppe and in the mountains, where are also the Persian and roe deer; while the steppe is infested with the souslyk (Sper∙ mophilus). The forests of Tchadyr-dagh are preserved for the crown, but permission to shoot, from June 29 (July 11), may be obtained. Domesticated animals include double-humped camels, buffaloes, beeves, and several kinds of sheep, one sort being distinguished by short curly hair of a bluish-grey colour; the merino sheep was introduced in 1804, and the breed is well maintained. The horses are small, hardy, and intelligent, but uncouth in appearance. The birds consist of eagles, vultures, hawks, ospreys, storks, herons, and some other birds of prey; partridges, which on the steppe are strong on the wing by the end of July; the ordinary, double, and jack snipe, quails, pigeons, bustards, swans, geese, bitterns, and wildfowl of every description, especially on the Sivash and north-west coast; also crows, owls, thrushes, blackbirds, king-fishers, &c. Serpents that are harmless, lizards, and frogs are abundant. The scorpion, mentioned by Pallas, is now very rare, but tarantula spiders and scolopendra, both noxious, frequently make their appearance in dwellings. Caterpillars and the mole cricket (Gryllo Valpa vulgaris) are very destructive in gardens. Bees are abundant, and produce excellent honey and a great deal of wax. In the rivers are taken trout, roach, dace, and cray-fish, and at their estuaries the sturgeon is sometimes found, and the salmon is speared. A great variety of fish haunt the coast, such as red and grey mullet, herring, mackerel, turbot, soles (at Eupatoria), plaice, whiting, bream, haddock, pilchard, soudak (the pike perch), whitebait, eels, and a variety of shell-fish, crabs, &c., but no lobsters. ∙

The Tatar population, the largest in the peninsula, amounted in 1874 to 127,682, according to the census taken a few months after the promulgation of the oukaz on the new system of general conscription, in which the Tatars were included. There are also Russians, Armenians, Gypsies, Greeks, Jews, and some Germans. The Nogai of the steppe h¾ve long since disappeared as natives, and are replaced by Tatars of almost pure Turkish descent, and speaking a language closely assimilating the Turkish. The Tatars on the south coast are a mixed race, largely alloyed with Greek, Italian, and Ottoman blood, and greatly despised by the former; but all are Mahometans, and strict observers of the Koran. The Tatars are extremely indolent, and never think of learning a trade; they busy themselves about their fields and gardens from the end of May to about the third week in August, but remain quite idle throughout the rest of the year. They are most hospitable to strangers, every Tatar of means keeping an ôda, or house of call for travellers, the first duty of a Tatar being the exercise of hospitality, on which he prides himself. Their cottages are constructed, when possible, on the slopes of rising ground, the rock forming the back of the habitation, which is usually whitewashed and kept scrupulously clean, ensconced by fruit trees and verdure. The Tatars are very abstemious, drinking milk and bouza, a fermented liquor made of millet; koumyss, “mare’s milk,” is much employed by them medicinally. The men wear baggy trowsers, a short embroidered jacket, and a cap of lamb skin; the women colour their nails, eyebrows, and frequently their hair, made up into numerous thin plaits, with kna, a mineral dye, and wear loose trowsers tightened at the ancles, a loose coat, and a red cap ornamented with numerous coins; they tie a kerchief round the waist, the opposite corners hanging down behind. The females, more especially on the south coast, have quite given up wearing the yashmak, “ veil,” since the occupation of the country by the allies in 1854-56. The mourzas, “nobles,” live in retirement, shunning intercourse with Christians, but their women are not kept in seclusion , every village has its molla, who is also the “elder,” and responsible to the authorities. The Armenians and Greeks hold the trade, as do also the Jews who are Karaims, “readers” of the Holy Scriptures, adhering strictly to the text of the Old Testament, and rejecting all oral traditions and rabbinical writings, keeping themselves quite apart from the Talmudists, to whom they are most odious. There are about 5000 Karaims in the peninsula. Russians and Germans are chiefly engaged in agriculture, while the gypsies are the artificers. The Russian language is very general throughout the peninsula.

Sympheropol, the chief town and seat of government (population, 17,000), is situated on the Salghyr, where was Ak-mesjyd, the second capital of the khanate. Like all Russian towns, it has fine broad streets at right angles to each other, and the usual whitewashed churches with green domes. Baghtchasarai and Kara-sou-bazar were given up by Catherine II. to the exclusive occupation of the Tatars, and have remained purely Oriental towns. Baghtchasarai, “garden palace,” was the capital of the khans after the destruction of Solkhat, now Esky-Crim; their palace is preserved to this day. Kertch, at the east end of the peninsula, is a fairly thriving port of transit for produce from ports in the Sea of Azoff, and imports into Russia of cattle and horses from the plains of the Kouban and of Circassia. It is a military station of some importance, the entrance to the straits of Kertch, or Yeny-Kaleh, the ancient Cimmerian Bosphorus, being protected by the formidable Pavlovsky fortress, a combination of masked batteries and covered ways over an extent of two miles., Theodosia, formerly Caffa, where a small export and import trade is carried on, thrives as a favourite watering-place. Sevastopol, in the superb harbour that bears its name, created a military port and fortress by Catherine IL, was bombarded and occupied by the Allies in September 1855. Eupatoria, formerly Khezlevé and Kozloff, is the great emporium for salt, and during Turkish occupation was the principal port in the Crimea; its inhabitants are chiefly Karaims, who have here a “spiritual institution” under their Gahan. Balaclava, the Symvolon limen of Strabo, Cembalo of the Genoese, is a small Greek fishing village in a splendid land-locked harbour to the east of Sevastopol, remarkable as being occupied by the British during the war. Yalta is a small but fashionable watering-place on the south coast, with excellent hotels and many inducements to visitors, the season lasting from May to September. Near Yalta is Livadia, the residence of the empress, and other imperial properties.

The most valuable commercial production is salt, of which the yearly supply is 15,000,000 pouds (apoud = 36 B> English). Salt entering Russia is excised at 30 copecks (9d.) per poud, and the entire revenue to the Government from the salt-lakes in the Crimea is estimated at £1,785,714. There are no manufactures, but the principal articles çf export are wine, feil (f.e., fuller’s earth), honey, wax, hides, lambskins, and wool. A reddish marble from quarries near Tchadyr-dagh is exported in small quantities. Communications in the peninsula are maintained by excellent post-roads and bridle-paths; and a railroad which connects Sevastopol, Baghtchasarai, and Sympheropol with the south of Russia was opened for traffic in January 1875.

The earliest known inhabitants of the Crimea were the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians about 680-631 b.c., and fled into Asia Minor, leaving only a remnant, who took refuge in the mountains and were afterwards known as the Tauri. These appear to have been a savage people, from the fact that all strangers that landed, or were cast on their coast, were sacrificed to the virgin goddess Iphigenia, afterwards apparently identified with a goddess of their own mythology by the Grecians, who named the country the Tauric peninsula after their predecessors, whence the Russian name Taurida. The numerous crypts existing about the rocky heights were in all probability the troglodyte caves of the Tauri; in some parts they were converted into hermitages and retreats by the Greeks during Byzantine occupation, and were again so utilized by their successors in the last century; these caves are to be seen at Ak-Kaya, Tepe-Kerman, Katch-Kalen, Tcherkess-Kerman, Mangoup, Mangoush, Tchyfout-Kaleh, Inkerman, &c.

In the year 658 b.c. the Heracleotes crossed the Axine, as the Black sea was then called, and founded a colony near where is now Sevastopol, the territory they occupied becoming known as the Heracleotic Chersonese, to distinguish it from the Tauric Chersonese. The city of Chersonesus flourished under its own free institutions during the space of 1000 years, and even longer, though it became a dependency of the Eastern empire; it was taken in 988 by the Russian grand-prince Vladimir, who there received baptism, and was completely destroyed in 1363, by Olgerd, grand prince of Lithuania. In the 7th century B.C., other Grecians, the Milesians, settled at Theodosia, and later at Nymphaeum and Panticapaeum (Kertch), which last city became their metropolis under the authority of an archon, and afterwards of a king, whose dominion, the kingdom of the Bosphorus, included Phanagoria on the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a city founded with others at the same time as Panticapaeum, and the emporium of the people on the Asiatic shores of the strait. Parisades, sovereign in 115 b.c., being hard pressed by the Scythians, voluntarily ceded his dominion to Mithridates, king of the Pontus, whose son Pharnaces, after his own downfall, was permitted by Rome to assume the sovereignty of the Bosphorus, a sovereignty that continued until a late period under the protection of the Roman empire. The peninsula was overrun successively by the Alans (62 a.d.), the Goths, whose descendants, peaceably employed in agriculture, remained until the early part of the !4th century, the Huns in 376, the Khozars in the 8th century, expelled by the Byzantines in 1016, and the Kiptchaks, who possessed themselves, about 1050, of Khazary, by which name the peninsula was called, after the Khozars, they being in their turn expelled by the Mongols, about 1237. Penticapaeum, or Cerchio (Kertch), was for a time (1343), occupied by the Venetians, their successors being the Genoese, who had established themselves at Caffa (Theodosia) in 1263-67, and to whom the seaboard known as Gothia, extending to Cembalo (Balaclava), was ceded in 1315. Cembalo, Soldaia (Soudak), and Caffa were strongly fortified by them, Caffa being the centre of an extensive Asiatic trade that included Persia, India, and China. The ruins of the Genoese fortifications still remain.

After the destruction of the Golden Horde by Tamerlane, the Tatars of the Crimea elected, about 1428, a khan for themselves, a descendant through Toktamish of Jinghis Khan, one Hadgy, who assumed the name of Ghyrey, his capital being at Solkhat, now Esky-Crim. This khanate continued independent until the conquest of Crim by Mahomet II. (1475), who made the khan prisoner, and sent the Genoese and other Christians into servitude and slavery. The khans, thenceforth the vassals of the sultans, were at the head of a warlike race, by whom the Russian provinces were being continually devastated until the year 1777, when Suwaroff dispersed the troops of Dyvlett Ghyrey, who fled to the Caucasus, and the usurper Selim Ghyrey ascended the throne under the protection of Catherine II. He was, however, forced to appeal to Russia for succour against revolt amongst his own subjects, and the Crimea was eventually annexed to the Russian empire by order of the empress, August 1, 1783, the treaty for its cession by the Porte being signed January 9, 1784.

The Crimea was occupied by the allied forces of Great Britain, France, and Sardinia during the Russo-Turkish war of 1853-56. The British and French troops landed near Eupatoria, September 14, 1854, and did not evacuate the peninsula until July 12, 1856, during which period were fought the battles of the Alma, Tchernaya, Balaclava, and Inkerman, and the formidable fortress of Sevastopol was reduced by siege.

See Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage antour du Caucase, &c., 6 vols., Paris, 1839; Kohl, Reisen en Sudrussland, 2 vols., Dresden, 1841; Bossoli, Scenery of the Crimea (52 large drawings), 1855; Ph. Brunn, Notices Hist, et Top. concernant less colonies Italiennesen Gazarie, St Petersburg, 1866; Commr. J. Buchan Telfer, R.N^., The Crimea and Transcaucasia, 2 vols. London, 1876.