CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE. EDITED BY MRS. MILNER, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF DEAN MILNER," "HISTORICAL SKETCHES," ETC. "I NEVER WANTED ARTICLES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS, HALF SO MUCH AS ARTICLES ON COMMON SUBJECTS WRITTEN WITH A DECIDEDLY CHRISTIAN NEW SERIES. VOL. X.-1855. LONDON: J. F. SHAW, 36, PATERNOSTER ROW: HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; MENZIES, EDINBURGH; PREFACE. IN availing herself of the opportunity of addressing a few words to her readers afforded by the close of her twelfth annual volume, the Editor, as heretofore, has to express her grateful sense of the favour with which her periodical has been received. That her Magazine, under its different titles, has been acceptable to a large body of readers, is sufficiently indicated by the length of the period during which it has been before the public. If it have also contributed in any degree to the diffusion and support, in their Protestant purity, of those great principles of Scriptural Christianity which it has ever been the Editor's object to recommend as worthy of all acceptation, its highest purpose will have been answered, and her most anxious desire respecting it abundantly fulfilled. The Vicarage, Appleby, Westmoreland, Dec., 1855. THE CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1855. THE CRIMEA: A SKETCH, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE. HE traveller who should pass from Asia by crossing the narrow strait which unites the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov, and which anciently bore the name of the Cimmerian Bospho rus, would land on the eastern coast of the ancient Taurica Chersonesus; a peninsula of no great note in classical times, save as connected with the fables of mythology; and, for some centuries at least, almost unknown to modern history; but upon which, at the present day, the eyes of Europe-we might say, of the civilized world-are fixed with an earnest and anxious gaze. This peninsula, now called the Crimea, and at present the scene of a momentous war, of which no human sagacity can predict the course, the duration, or the issue, is but as it were a speck in the vast expanse of territory subject to the Russian sceptre. Its native population scarcely amounts to three hundred thousand; and consists chiefly of the mixed race called Tahtars, and of Greeks; mingled, however, with Russians and Germans, who, in times comparatively recent, have been transplanted thither as colonists. The country is mountainous towards its southern extremity; and on the northern border of this mountainous district stands its capital, the town of Simferopol; or, according to the Turkish nomenclature, Akmetched; the old Tahtar capital, Baktchesarai, once the residence of the Khans, being about thirty versts (or nearly twenty English miles) further to the south, and occupying the very heart of the hilly country. The principal harbours of the Crimea are Kaffa, on the south-eastern coast; Eupatoria, situated at nearly the corresponding point of the |