of Trebizond. Cruising with these vessels on the southern shore of the Euxine, he carried on a piratical warfare against the subjects of Alexius. The Greeks of Trebizond and Kerasunt had still up to this time retained a certain portion of the maritime trade in their own hands; but now they saw their commerce ruined, their ships captured, and their coasts ravaged by the insolent and daring Lercari; while a feeble attempt on the part of the emperor to protect them only resulted in the capture of all the imperial galleys that were sent out to the rescue. With a barbarity unworthy of his name and country, Lercari cruelly mutilated all the prisoners that fell into his hands, by cutting off their noses and ears, and sent a barrel full of these miserable trophies to the emperor, with the threat that he would continue to exact a similar tribute till he should obtain full satisfaction for the insult he had received. Alexius had no choice but to submit, and surrendered the wretched page into the hands of his enemy. But Lercari, with a magnanimity hardly to be expected from his previous cruelty, scorned to punish the poor stripling, and contented himself with having humbled his master. At the same time he took the opportunity to secure for his countrymen a fresh commercial treaty by which the whole trade of Trebizond was virtually secured to them. The beginning of the fifteenth century was the period when the power of the Genoese in the Black Sea was at its greatest height. Even the conquests of the Ottoman Turks did not for a considerable time seriously interfere with it. But the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, involved their flourishing colony of Galata in the ruin of the capital; and though Kaffa still survived for a time, and from its secluded position witnessed in apparent security the successive fall of Constantinople and Trebizond, it was evident that its own fate could not be far distant. It was accelerated by domestic dissensions. Such was the influence that the Genoese colonists had at this time acquired over the Tartar chiefs, that the governors or Khans of the Crimea were not appointed by their superior lord, the Khan of Kaptchak, without the consent and approbation of the magistrates of Kaffa. A contest had arisen between two candidates for this appointment, in which the Genoese magistrates, who had been gained by large bribes, favoured the cause of the wrongful claimant, and succeeded in forcing his appointment upon the unwilling Khan. Hereupon Eminek, the defeated candidate, had recourse to a more powerful protector, and persuaded Mahomet II., who had just assembled a powerful fleet and army for the conquest of Rhodes, to turn his efforts against Kaffa. The appearance of so formidable VOL. CII. NO. CCVII. I an armament struck terror into the citizens of the colony, who were already divided among themselves by internal dissensions, and assailed from without by a Tartar force under Eminek. On the 6th of June, 1475, after a faint attempt at resistance for a few days, they opened their gates to the Turkish commander Achmet Pacha. He promised to spare their lives, but transported forty thousand of the inhabitants to Constantinople, where they served in some measure to fill the gap of desolation that had been created in that populous capital by the Turkish conquest. The fall of Kaffa was naturally followed by that of the smaller places held by the Genoese in the peninsula. The fate of most of these has nothing to arrest our attention. But the remarkable rock-fortress of Mangoup deserves to be made an exception, not only on account of the heroic resistance offered by its defenders to the overwhelming forces of the Turks, but as the last occasion on which the once dreaded name of the Goths makes its appearance in history. In the mountain district of the Crimea, that people had preserved its nationality and its language for above twelve centuries; and the two brothers who so gallantly defended the fortress of Mangoup against the troops of Mahomet II. showed that they had not degenerated from the hereditary valour of their race. Thus fell the power of the Genoese in the Black Sea. But it would be unjust to attribute (as Dr. Koch has done) the final desolation and decay of Kaffa to its Turkish conquerors. Severely as it suffered on this occasion, as well as from the subsequent oppressions of the Tartar khan Mengli Ghirei, who now ruled the Crimea as tributary to the Turks, it is certain that it subsequently recovered itself to a great degree, and became again one of the most flourishing commercial cities in the Black Sea. So far from all trade having disappeared with the departure of the Genoese, we learn from Chardin, who visited it in 1672, that the town then contained not less than 4000 houses, and carried on so active a trade that during the space of forty days which he spent there, not less than 400 vessels arrived in or quitted its port.† At a later period, Peyssonel, who was for many years French Consul * In the treaty of 1380 between the Khan of Kaptchak and the Genoese, 'la Gotia con i suoi casai ed i suoi popoli che son Cris'tiani' is annexed to the dominions of the latter. Giuseppe Barbaro, who has left us a curious account of Tana, and the trade with the interior of Asia in the fifteenth century, remarks, 'I Goti parlano ' in Tedesco.' (Ramusio, vol. ii. p. 91.) † Chardin, Voyage en Perse, vol. i. pp. 47, 48. General in the Crimea, estimated the population of Kaffa, shortly before its conquest by the Russians, at 85,000 souls. Forty years after that event it was reduced to less than 4000; and even as late as 1834, had not again risen to more than 4500. Pallas himself, writing in 1803, under the authority of the Russian Government, deplores the state of desolation of this once opulent city, which was already little more than a heap of ruins. The splendid Genoese churches had been spared by the Turks and Tartars, who had contented themselves with converting them into mosques; but they have been demolished, with one single exception, by the Russian authorities. picturesque walls and towers, which still subsisted uninjured in the days of Pallas, have been since almost entirely destroyed, and their materials employed in the construction of barracks. Kaffa, in the hands of the Tartars, was probably but a shadow of what it had once been under the Genoese; but it was immeasurably superior to what it has become under the Russians. The We cannot attempt here to trace any further the fortunes of the Crimea. Under the government of the Tartar Khans it sank for more than three centuries into that state of obscurity from which it has only recently emerged. But the events of the last twelve months have earned for it a place in history which can never again be lost. Whatever be the destinies of the Crimea itself, its name has become imperishable; and the gallant deeds that have been done under the walls of Sebastopol will live as long as the English language shall endure. But it is impossible to repress a hope that this memorable contest may be also the beginning of a fairer period for the country in which it has been carried on: and when we look back at the important position once held by the Tauric Peninsula under the Greeks and the Genoese, we cannot but feel that its natural advantages require only to be developed by a more liberal policy, in order that it should again rise to a condition both of agricultural and commercial prosperity very different from the state to which it has fallen under the Russian Government. Dubois de Montpéreux, vol. v. p. 285. + We regret to have received Mr. Danby Seymour's interesting and comprehensive volume upon the Shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff too late to have availed ourselves in this article of the result of his researches and observations; but we recommend this work to our readers as one of the most complete productions which has been published on this interesting subject. ART. V.-1. Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. By C. E. H. ORPEN, Esq., M. D. London: 1836. 2. The Lost Senses. PART I. Deafness. By J. KITTO, D.D. London: 1853. 3. The Art of Instructing the Deaf and Dumb. By J. P. ARROWSMITH and the ABBÉ DE L'EPÉE. London: 1819. 4. Le Bienfaiteur des Sourds-Muets et des Aveugles: Revue Mensuelle du Progrès des Institutions et de l'Unité d'Enseigne⚫ment dans les Deux-Mondes. Par M. L'ABBÉ DARAS, Fondateur. À Paris: 1854. 5. Results of an Inquiry respecting the former Pupils of the Yorkshire Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. Printed by Boys of Deaf and Dumb School at Doncaster. 6. Trench on the Study of Words. London: 1852. 1847. ON N the 18th of November, 1852, the day when the great Captain, full of honours as of years,' was laid in solemn pomp beneath the dome of St. Paul's, a train which reached London at four in the morning brought one passenger who during the journey had attracted no little attention. He had entered the carriage at the Blenkinsop Station some ninety miles from town, and spent upwards of three hours with his fellow-passengers in profound silence. He was a well-dressed, handsome fellow, bright-eyed, and intelligent in look; but throughout the entire distance not even once did he open his mouth but to give his front teeth a tap* with a paper-knife. Six o'clock found our traveller one of the vast multitude who on that memorable morning eagerly crowded every damp inlet *I was much interested,' says Dr. Kitto (himself a deaf-mute), ' in reading the account of a lad both blind and deaf, whose principal enjoyment appeared to be derived from striking a small key upon his teeth. It is evident that in the search of a sensation, he had hit upon this trick as affording a more distinct impression of a felt sound than any other which he had been able to attain. Until this case fell under my notice, it had escaped my attention that I have myself unconsciously contracted a habit of continually striking the back of my thumb-nail, or the point of a penknife, upon the edge of my teeth; and that I also felt pleasure, for which I had not previously seen any particular reason, in vibrating a knife or spoon upon the edge of a dish or plate, or against an empty glass.' (Kitto's Deafness, p. 46.) We regret (since writing the above) to notice Dr. Kitto's sudden death; and hope that the subscription on behalf of his family will be a successful one. to the thronged and muddy Strand. After some three hours' wandering through this densely-packed thoroughfare, he at last paused at the corner of Bridge Street, Blackfriars, and there became firmly wedged into a compact mass of spectators near the obelisk. From this post of observation he never stirred again until the whole pageant, with all its boast of heraldry ' and pomp of power,' had with solemn tramp swept by him and was gone. Then the huge living wave rolled back and onward through the mighty thoroughfare, spreading silently away through the countless veins and arteries of the City. But of all the thousand mourners near him probably not one shares in such feelings as now fill the heart of our traveller. He has been present with them throughout the whole spectacle, but of many of its grandest features has been utterly unconscious. Many a time throughout the day solemn silence slowly rippled over the waves of that vast and expectant multitude; the silence awoke up again into a busy hum- anon died away, and yet again dawned into sound. Then far away in the distance there rises on the wind to ten thousand listening ears the shrill cry of trumpets, and the low moan of distant and muffled drums; the solemn wail of the dead march, and the heavy tread of armed men: but to this one spectator the gale brings no trumpet-cry, no sound of the military pageant,-no word of wonder, delight, surprise, or sorrow from speaking lips on every side. To him the whole scene is one of deep unbroken silence-he neither hears nor utters word or sound of even the least emotion. He is deaf and dumb. His neighbours on either side are half inclined to suspect him to be crazy, and now and then hint their belief; but the unconscious object of their charity neither hears nor answers their sarcasm. So concentrated, keen and fixed is his gaze, that with his eyes he seems. to hear and speak as well as see, as if the one organ embraced the life and power of three. The face of the blind man-mentioned by Coleridge-was all one eye, while in the face of the deaf and dumb the very absent senses seem most present. We have called our readers' attention to this sketch from life because it aptly enough introduces us to one important feature in the isolation of the deaf and dumb when compared with their fellow-sufferers the blind, or with the rest of mankind. That point is, the eternal, unchanging, desolate silence of their whole existence. An hour's silence may be at times a very pleasant thing; but a whole existence, unbroken by even the faintest sound or murmur, is a totally different question, so different, indeed, that it is doubtful if hearing men can at all form a true idea of it. What would the busy - |