at this point by a sandy down and bridge, for nothing remains of the ancient channel but three lakes and a narrow bed of water, with a vast extent of reed marsh.* In 1799 a mud island was suddenly lifted out of the Sea of Azof at a distance of about two miles from the coast, at this point, but it disappeared in 1800. It reappeared for a short time in 1814.

At a distance of about half a mile from Peresippe is another great island, upon which, half-way between the Sea of Azof and the Bay of Taman, is an old square fort, clad with the usual greensward of the tumuli. Beyond this is a vallum ten feet in height and about a hundred paces in width, which keeps along the hollow way as far as to the shores of the bay. The square fort has been identified with one of the strongholds of the Clazomenians, and the vallum with the intrenchment and ditch of the Cimmerians, which Strabo describes as defending the island in which that people had established the seat of their empire.

A modern archæologist has endeavoured, we believe successfully, to show that it was among the Cimmerians that Ulysses came to consult the oracle of Tiresias; and the island of Taman, which they inhabited, appeared to Homer to be the extremity of the empire of Neptune. There were the entrances to the fearful abodes of Pluto, still represented by the volcanoes of mud and the springs of bitumen, from whence flow black waters, with an odour as repulsive as those of Cocytus and Acheron.

The Cimmerians of old became, at a later epoch, the most distinguished agents in those historically ancient revolutions-the most important, in their time, of all those that led to changes in the destiny of Europe and of Asia. The Cimmerians in Asia Minor at the gates of Ionia, the Cimmerians on the banks of the Dniester and of the Bug, and at a later period in Scandinavia; the Scythians in Egypt and in Syria, the Scythians in the heart of the Old World, subjugating all Asia; all alike started from this point. Beyond this rampart was the capital of the Cimmerians, the centre of the earth at that time. The thoughts of all were concentrated on this spot; all eyes were directed towards the metropolis where those weighty questions were decided upon which hung the fate of Europe and of Asia; everything was on the verge of a great change in these two portions of the world. The Medes aroused, were about to resume their wonten energy, and reconquer their realms. The empire of the Persians rising upon their ruin, and Darius, seeking to revenge himself upon the Scythians, marched his innumerable hosts towards the south of Europe; affrighted nations took their way to the north, in the footsteps of the Cimmerians, a people richly gifted, and more anciently developed than the rest, and therefore in these primeval times at the head of European civilisation. Darius, balked in his plans of revenge, turns his arms upon Greece; but there the energy of defence,

*Captain Sherard Osborn, of her Majesty's ship Vesuvius, in his despatch to Sir Edmund Lyons, dated September 26, speaking of this bridge, says, amusingly, "Lieutenant Campion was fortunate enough to discover that the road lay over a fine wooden bridge which spanned a channel connecting the Sea of Azof with Lower Temriouk Lake." The flotilla in the Sea of Azof must be supplied with very indifferent charts or other sources of geographical information. For how long a time were we ignorant of the very existence of the Arabat and Tchongar routes ?

grafted by the genius of liberty, by civilisation and the arts, once more defeats his projects. Strange it is to see these same lands invaded in the present day in the defence of liberty and civilisation in Europe and in Asia. These deserted shores, these waterless rivers and dried-up inlets of the sea, these nameless tumuli, these ruins barely rising above the surface of the soil, which has preserved no memory of their origin; these green hills so thinly peopled, these ramparts invaded by torrents of volcanic mud, once the theatre of such great events, are destined to be aroused once more in our own times by the clang of armed men from the West, come to re-establish the claims of the Cimmerian soil and waters to the rights of civilisation and progress!

In the heart of this district is one of the greatest curiosities of the peninsula-the spring called Fontan, and which is neither more nor less than a volcanic vent pouring forth pure water, instead of a muddy and bituminous fluid. The crater is situated upon the most elevated spot in the island; it is a hundred paces in diameter, and from six to twelve feet in depth, with a sandy bottom. The water is, however, drawn off by lateral canals; one that was constructed by the Turks was found there by the Cossacks in 1792. In a country where there are so few springs, the inhabitants, whoever they were, were sure to group themselves there. The remains of a mosque are still to be seen by the side of the Cossack huts.

There was, in after times, a Greek Kimmericum; it stood at the mouth of the Bosphorus, where Pallas explored a square fort surrounded by tumuli, not far from the little Turk fortress of Kizlar. This was the site of the town, founded, according to Scymnus of Chio, by the tyrants of Bosphorus, and to the south of which, near the Bay of Buchukoi, Pallas found the fort and tumuli, with vast numbers of funereal urns in red clay, of the olden inhabitants of Achillæum.* But as to the city of the Cimmerians of old, it was a real metropolis, after the fashion of Babylon and Nineveh, embracing in its suburbs, according to Strabo, the whole extent of the Cimmerian peninsula. Thus the entire island was the capital of the country, and it had for defences the intrenchments and ditch just described, and the Cyclopean walls of siliceous shist (originally brought from the Peninsula of Kertch), and which border the elevated pastoral plains that flank that island from east to west. These walls at places present a series of monoliths, like the peulvans or menhirs of the Celts, which Pallas mistook for funereal columns of the Circassians; but Dubois de Montpereux has shown that this nation attributes them to a race of giants of old.

History relates that a tumulus of vast proportions was raised in honour of Satyrus, first king of Bosphorus, who reigned from 407 to 393 B.C. This monument, placed upon a cape which advanced into the Bosphorus, was visible from almost all points of the coast of Europe and Asia. spot, strange to say, identified with the site of this giant tumulus, is now a mud volcano-as if a vent and crater would select for the scene of its

The

It was a practice with the Greeks to erect temples to Achilles at the extremity of the remarkable spits of land which are met with in these seas. There was one on the long spit of Tendra, near the mouth of the Dnieper, and which was hence designated as the Course of Achilles.

operations the very spot selected for the mausoleum of a king and conqueror! Yet such we shall subsequently find is not the only instance in the peninsula of mud volcanoes breaking out amidst monuments of antiquity. The mud volcano once the tumulus of Satyrus, and now known as the Kukuoba-broke out in the evening of the 27th of February, 1794. Its eruption was accompanied with much noise, followed by a column of smoke and lofty sheets of flame. For several days after it threw up jets of mud to a height of from ten to twelve feet. A crater existed, however, previous to this eruption, and within it was about eight inches of pure water, surrounded by reeds. Several other eruptions of mud have since occurred at the same spot. The greatest torrent of mud has extended in an easterly direction, a distance of fifteen hundred yards. The view from the summit, comprising as it does Kertch and Yeni-Kaleh, and the greater portion of the Bosphorus, is at once beautiful and comprehensive. At its foot are ruins, supposed to be those of the ancient Patræus.

The Kukuoba is not the only mud volcano in the Cimmerian peninsula.* At a place called Khuter Kalugof, on the shores of the Sea of Azof, is a crater that is continually pouring forth torrents of mud and bitumen, the latter of which is collected by the peasants in the neighbourhood. Near the same place is a large fishing establishment of the Cossacks.

The island of Phanagoria formed, in the time of Strabo, with that of the Cimmerians, one great island, which he says was surrounded by the Korokandamite estuary and the Palus and river Antikites or Kuban, The Amasian geographer described two towns as being to the left of the river: Phanagoria and Kepos, the country of the mother of Demosthenes. Phanagoria reveals itself, and little uncertainty remains concerning the site of Kepos, for accumulations of tumuli are sure indications of a Milesian colony. As soon as the hollow way-remnant of the channel that once separated the two islands, the Peganum Harmala-is passed, it seems as if the country had changed, the tumuli become so numerous over the whole surface of the land. The existence of the hollow way of the Peganum Harmala dates anteriorly to the time of the Cimmerians, since they found it necessary to defend it; and this would show that the two islands have been united since anti-historical times, although the causes of the channel being filled up are the same as in most other cases in the Peninsula of Taman, and are inscribed upon its flanks.

The whole of the coast of the island of Phanagoria that fronts the Bay of Taman is bordered by a formidable line of mud volcanoes, which are distributed into three groups, each crowned by a culminating point. The

* The Russians call these mud-volcanoes Blevaki, but they have also particular designations for some, as Greznei Gera, mountain of mud; Gnila-gora, rotten mountain; Horilka Moghila, burning mountain in the Cossack dialect. They also call them Pekla or hells; or, as the Cossacks say, Prekla. Kukuoba, or Kuoukobo, in Tartar language, means blue mountain, Guk Tagh of the Turks. The eruptions of these mud volcanoes are most frequent in spring. Thus the Kukuoba broke out the 27th of February, 1794. The Kussuoba on Good Friday, 1818. The principal eruption of the Gnila-gora took place in February, 1815. One of the islands of Tyrambe rose up the 10th of May, 1814. The mud volcano of Taman was never more active than in April, 1835. Another of the islands at Tyrambe appeared however on the 5th of September, 1799.

loftiest of these is Mount Chumukai, also called Kul-oba, or "hill of cinders." This vent, although it helped to fill up the hollow way, has been long dormant; so much so that its top and flanks are covered with sepulchral tumuli. There must, however, have been at least lateral eruptions within historical times, for Pallas describes the mud thrown out upon its flanks as containing vast numbers of fragments of amphora and cinerary urns.

A still more curious instance of this intermixture of mud volcanoes. and ancient tumuli, as in the monument of Satyrus and the mounds of Chumukai, presents itself in the instance of the temple of Diana Agrotera. To the east of Mount Chumukai, and close to the green banks of Lake Aktaniz, there existed formerly a hill, about 150 feet in height, which had a kind of heap upon its summit that much resembled a tumulus.

Suddenly, on Good Friday, in April, 1818, a mud volcano burst forth with a terrific explosion right through the centre of the hill, tearing up its interior, and revealing its nature. Huge fragments of stone and masses of foundations were cast about, and among these an inscription, in three fragments, was found at the foot of the cone, which related the history of the place, for it recorded as follows:

"Xenoclides Posios erected a temple to Diana Agrotera under Pairisades, son of Leucon, Archon of Bosphorus and of Theodosia, and King of the Sindians, the Toretes, and the Dandarians."

Pairisades I., second son of Leucon, and brother of Spartacus III., reigned over Bosphorus from 349 to 311 B.C., and was the contemporary of Philip of Macedon and of Alexander the Great.

At the foot of this mound is the village of Akdenghisofka, occupying a very pretty situation on the banks of Lake Aktaniz, the Turkish name of which, Ak Denghiz, or White Sea, has been left to the site with the Russian termination ofka. This village apparently occupies the site of Kepos, the spot where the Phanagorians of old came to cultivate their pleasant gardens on an amphitheatre encircling a fresh water lake, and with a fertile soil.

Monuments of ancient times abound in the neighbourhood. Not only did the operations of nature disclose the Temple of Diana, but by the tumbling down of cliffs at Cape Rakhmanofskoi they also revealed a second remnant of antiquity of a little less interesting character. The waters of the lake were found washing the torsos of two headless statues in silicious ironstone, the costume of one of which was a long Greek tunic, gracefully disposed, and tightened to the waist by a band; the workmanship was excellent, and worthy of the best times of Greece. Close by was also found the pedestal, cut out of the same silicious ironstone, and exposure to the water, and the lapse of time, had not effaced one of the most interesting inscriptions discovered in the Bosphorus. It recorded as follows:

"Comosaryes, daughter of Girgippus, and wife of Pairisades, in order to accomplish a vow made by her, has raised this monument to the powerful divinities Anerges and Astara. Pairisades was Archon of Bosphorus and of Theodosia, and King of the As, of the Mæotes, and of the Thateans."

Anerges is the same as the Nergal of Scripture-the principle of fire

worshipped by the Cutheans of old, and by the Izedis of our own time under the shape of a cock. Ner, or Nur, is the root signifying fire in both the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages, the Cuthean, Persian, and Arabic. Christ gave to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the surname of Boanerges, which is, the Sons of Thunder. (Trans. of SyroEgyptian Society for 1854 and 1855.)

Astara, it is almost needless to remark, is the same as the Ashtoreth and Astarte of the Syrians and Phoenicians, and the Athor of the Egyptians. She became in classic mythology the Uranian Venus, Nocturnal Venus, the Syrian, Canaan, and Armenian Venus-in one word, the Oriental Venus who presided over the mysteries of night, of creation, and of the infernal regions. The etymology of Astara comes from Astar and Star, which in the Oriental languages had the same signification as in ours.

The statue of Anerges has been removed to the church at Taman; it is not known what has become of the other. The inscription was deposited in the church of Akdenghisofka.

Such is Kepos, surrounded by its temples and ancient tumuli. Æschines, in one of his orations against Demosthenes, makes mention of the place:

"A certain Gylon of Ceramos had delivered up Nymphæa, a town of Pontus, which belonged to us, to the enemy. The traitor did not wait for the judgment which condemned him to death, he exiled himself, and taking refuge in the Bosphorus, he received from the tyrants of the place, as the reward of his perfidy, a site called Kepos, and he took to himself a wife, undoubtedly rich and with a good dowry, but Scythian by birth. He had by her two daughters, whom he sent to Athens, also with large dowries. He married one to a person I shall not name (Demochares), not to make myself too many enemies; Demosthenes of Peanee, in despite of all law, wedded the other (Cleobules), from whom descended this firebrand and impostor (the orator Demosthenes). Thus, by his maternal grandfather, he is an enemy of the people; you condemned his ancestors to death; by his mother he is a Scythian, a barbarian, who has nothing Grecian about him save his language, and has far too perverse a heart to be an Athenian."

A prodigious number of conical tumuli, varying from twenty to thirty feet in height, announce the approach to Phanagoria. Seen from the station of Sennaia, the island appears to be divided into two long, low, and narrow ridges, which run parallel to one another to the west-southwest, having on the one side the Bay of Taman, and on the other Lake Aktaniz. These two ridges terminate at the hollow way of Chimardane, having a rivulet and marshes which unite the lake with the bay. A ramification of this marshy valley advances to some distance between the hills, and this hollow way marks the ancient course of the river Antikites, or Kuban, when it flowed into the Korokandamite estuary below Phanagoria. Phanagoria itself is situated on the sandy down that borders the Bay of Taman. The marsh that advances between the two ridges is the ancient port of the capital of the Asiatic Bosphorus, and the horse-shoe head formed by the junction of the two ridges is its vast and mysterious cemetery.

The ruins of the city of Phanagoria begin at a distance of half a verst