The earth and its inhabitants The earth and its inhabitants .. earthitsinhabita583recl Year: 1883 CHAPTER XI. THE CRIMEA. HE Crimean peninsula is attached to the mainland only by the narrow isthmus of Perekop. Still the nature of the soil and the level surface of its northern steppes show that they are merely a continuation of the New Russian steppe, forming Avith it a single geological region. The real Crimea, that portion at least which is geographically distinct from the rest of the empire, is the highland southern district stretching from the Khersonesus headland to the Strait of Yeni-Kal
The earth and its inhabitants The earth and its inhabitants .. earthitsinhabita583recl Year: 1883 CHAPTER XI. THE CRIMEA. HE Crimean peninsula is attached to the mainland only by the narrow isthmus of Perekop. Still the nature of the soil and the level surface of its northern steppes show that they are merely a continuation of the New Russian steppe, forming Avith it a single geological region. The real Crimea, that portion at least which is geographically distinct from the rest of the empire, is the highland southern district stretching from the Khersonesus headland to the Strait of Yeni-Kaleh, and whose axis is connected with that of the Caucasus, in the volcanic peninsulas of Kertch and Taman. These highlands, and especially the southern sloj^es of the mountains, differ essentially from Russia proper both in their greoloo-y, their history, and even in their climate. The Crimea was already associated in its legends with the Hellenic world many centuries before the vast land of the Scythians began to be revealed, and later on it never ceased to take part in the great historic movements of the Mediterranean nations. Here was that capital of the Pontine kingdom whic'h Mithridates had founded as a rallying- point in his struggle with Rome; and here were, later on, those flourishing Byzantine, Pisan, and Genoese colonies which served as the means of communi- cation between the civilised peoples of the South and the still barbarous tribes of the Volga, Even quite recently the Crimea has been the battle-field of Russia with the two chief states of West Europe, For the Russians themselves, here till lately far less numerous than the descendants of the Asiatic and Mediter- ranean races, the peninsula is, so to say, a foreign land, a colonial possession ; or rather the southern slope of the Taurida mountains, sung by Pushkiv, is for them a second Italy in its plants, its climate, in the aspect of land and sky—one of those reo-ions which have most contributed to develop i
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