The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

KBEMEXCHUG-FOLTAYA. 309wretches, whose common grave is still shown ;Rashovka, where the societies ofthe Little Russian hawkers have their head-quarters ; and near it Sorochintzi,birthplace of Gogol. But the chief commercial centre of the whole of LittleRussia is Kremenchug, one of the principal ports of the Dnieper. The loadingand transhipment of goods employ large numbers in spring, when the population,including the suburb of Krukov, rises from 30,000 to about GO, 000. Krukov is mostlycovered by the large Government salt stores, timber and building yards ;and theEremenchiig carriage factories, agricultural implement works, tanneries, steamsaw-mills, tobacco factories, supply a large amount of the local consumption. Itsmost remarkable structure is the tubular railway bridge, 3,080 feet long, onFig. 160.Ekembncuuo,Scale 1 : 280,000.5. '10' C.ofP35' 50 E of Gthe Eharkov-Balta line. In spring the town is occasionally almost entirely underwater, and it is also frequently devastated by fire, but it constantly rises from itsashes larger and uglier than ever.In the basin of the Yorskla, whose windings preserve almost a perfectparallelism with the Psol, are the towns of Akhttrka, much frequented by pilgrims,and Poltaca, capital of the government, near the converging point of all thehead-streams, and ever memorable for the sanguinary battle of 1709, in which themeteoric career of Charles XII. was extinguished, and Russia as it were ceasedto he a purely Asiatic state, and suddenly took its place amongst the greatEuropean powers. Several monuments in the town and neighbourhood commemo-VOL. V. T