The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

CHAPTER XLTHE CRIMEA.HE Crimean peninsula is attached to the mainland only by thenarrow isthmus of Perekop. Still the nature of the soil and thelevel surface of its northern steppes show that they are merelya continuation of the New Puissian steppe, forming with it asingle geological region. The real Crimea, that portion at leastwhich is geographically distinct from the rest of the empire, is the highlandsouthern district stretching from the Khersonesus headland to the Strait ofYeui-Kaleh, and whose axis is connected with that of the Caucasus, in thevolcanic peninsulas of Kertch and Taman. These highlands, and especially thesouthern slopes of the mountains, differ essentially from Russia proper Loth intheir geology, their history, and even in their climate. The Crimea was alreadyassociated in its legends with the Hellenic world many centuries before the vastland of the Scythians began to be revealed, and later on it never ceased to takepart in the great historic movements of the Mediterranean nations. Here wasthat capital of the Pontine kingdom which Mithridates had founded as a rallyingpointin his struggle with Rome ; and here were, later on, those flourishingByzantine, Pisan, and Genoese colonies which served as the means of communicationbetween the civilised peoples of the South and the still barbarous tribesof the Volga. Even quite recently the Crimea has been the battle-field of Russiawith the two chief states of "West Europe. For the Russians themselves, heretill lately far less numerous than the descendants of the Asiatic and Mediterraneanraces, the peninsula is, so to say, a foreign land, a colonial possessionor rather the southern slope of the Taurida mountains, sung by Pushkiv, is forthem a second Italy in its plants, its climate, in the aspect of land and sky—oneof those regions which have most contributed to develop in the modern Russiana feeling for nature. Yet, compared with the boundless empire of the Czar, it isa very insignificant land, the highlands occupying no more than one-fifth of thepeninsula, and the whole peninsula itself forming a mere maritime fragment of thegovernment of Taurida, exceeded in area by one of the northern lakes, and inpopulation by such cities as St. Petersburg, Moscow, or even "Warsaw.