here we may behold the heights
of Caucasus, and picture to ourselves the situation of still more
interesting elevations; viz. Ararat, Lebanon, and Hermon; mountains
mentioned in the Sacred Writings, and certainly great points of
attraction to Christian travellers in Asiatic Turkey."

CHARLES. "There are several gulfs; but I do not know of any islands,
in the Black Sea. There is a peninsula attached to Russia, which
contains the towns of Kafa, Aknetchet, Sevastopol, and Eupatoria: it
lies between the Sea of Asof and the Gulf of Perecop. The principal
gulfs are the Gulf of Baba, the Gulf of Samson, the Gulf of Varna,
and the Gulf of Foros."

MR. BARRAUD. "The peninsula you mention, Charles, is the Crimea,
which possesses a most delicious climate, although lying contiguous
to the Putrid Sea, which bounds it on the north. There is an island
in the Euxine,--the Island Leuce, or Isle of Achilles, also called
the Isle of Serpents. It is asserted by the ancients to have been
presented to Achilles by his mother Thetis. In the Gulf of Perecop
there is also another island, called Taman, which contains springs
of naphtha."

MR. WILTON. "The principal port on the Black Sea is Odessa. It ranks
next in Russia after the two capitals of the empire, but is not a
desirable residence, being subject to hurricanes and other evils, of
which _dust_ is undoubtedly the greatest. A learned French writer[6]
says: 'Dust here is a real calamity, a fiend-like persecutor that
allows you not a moment's rest. It spreads out in seas and billows
that rise with the least breath of wind, and envelop you with
increasing fury, until you are stifled and blinded, and incapable of
a single movement.' The same writer describes a curious phenomenon
he witnessed in Odessa: 'After a very hot day in 1840, the air
gradually darkened about four in the afternoon, until it was
impossible to see twenty paces before one. The oppressive feel of
the atmosphere, the dead calm, and the portentous color of the sky,
filled every one with deep consternation, and seemed to betoken some
fearful catastrophe. The thermometer attained the height of 104 deg.
Fahrenheit. The obscurity was then complete. Presently the most
furious tempest imagination can conceive burst forth; and when the
darkness cleared off, there was seen over the sea what looked like
a waterspout of prodigious depth and breadth, suspended at a height
of several feet above the water, and moving slowly away until i