Beauplan.
the Water stinks for want of an Outlet.
Jezero Kuialik is 2000 Paces from the Sea, and is as full of Fish as the other. There go Caravans to these two Lakes from above so Leagues off for Fish. There are Carps and Pikes of a wonderful bigness.
Bielegrod is seated a League from the Sea upon the River Niester, which the Turks call Kierman. This Town is also subject to the Turk.
Killa is another Turkish Town, wall'd round, and with a Counterscarp. The Castle is seated above the Town upon the River Danube, a League from its Mouth. On the other Bank opposite to it is Old Kilia, of which some Ruins are still to be seen.
Budziak is between Bielegrod and Kilia, where is a Plain about twelve Leagues in length, and five or six in breadth, whither the mutinous Tartars, who own neither the Cham nor Turk, retire. There are about eighty or ninety Villages of those Libertine Tartars, who daily run into the Desert Plains to steal Christians and sell them to the Galleys, for they live upon Rapine like Birds of Prey. They sometimes break into the Ukraine and Podolia, but make no long stay there, and are forc'd to retire hastily, because they are not above four or five thousand Tartars; but they are continually upon the Borders, and in the Desert places. Their Villages are moveable, and their Houses built upon two Wheels, like the Shepherds Huts in France; for when they have eaten up the Grass in one Valley, they raise the Camp and remove, as I shall at last relate.
Tendra is an Island three or four Leagues from the Mouths of the Dnieper, but plain, with some Bushes: In it there is very good fresh Water, and all about it good anchoring.
Two Leagues from the Mouth of the Danube is a low Island about two Leagues in Compass, in which there is also fresh Water; the Turks call it Illanada, that is, Island of Serpents.
Smil is a Turkish Town, not wall'd : A League above Smil is the Place where Osman the Great Turk laid a Bridg over, in 1620, when he came into Podolia with 600000 fighting Men; it is a Cannon-shot below Oblizicza, and yet he did nothing but take a poor Castle call'd Kosin, which is upon the River Niester in Walachia; and the Polanders deliver'd it up on condition the Turk should return to Constantinople; which he did, after losing above 80000 Men, either by the Sword or Distempers that rag'd in his Army. The River in that place is very narrow, not above five or six hundred Paces over, for the Turks with their Bows shoot over it. Below that Bridg the Danube divides into several Branches, and the chief Channel runs down to Kilia.
Between Rene and Oblisczica are two Islands, as may be seen; Palleco is a small Island between the Danube and the Sea, about 2000 Paces in circumference, being round and encompass'd with Precipices, and all wooded; but every Year the Danube carrys away aome Port, its Current being very rapid, and the Island of a sandy Soil.
Galas is in Walachia, the Inhabitants Greek Christians; it is seated on the Danube betwixt the Mouths of the Rivers Seretk and Prut.
South of it is Warna, a Port on the Black Sea in Bulgaria: There is no other place in the Black Sea till you come to Constantinople, but only the Towers of the Black Sea, which are upon the Mouth of the Strait three Leagues from Constantinople.
Of the Crim Tartary.
CRIM is a great Peninsula in the Black Sea, South of Muscovy: It is full of Tartars come out of the Great Tartary, who have a King whom they call Cam, who holds of the Great Turk; and these are the Tartars who so often make Inroads into Poland and Muscovy, to the number of 80000, who burn and ravage all they find in their way ; and then return home with fifty or sixty thousand Russian Slaves, and sell them to serve aboard the Galleys, for these People live only upon Rapine.
This Peninsula's Isthmus is not above half a League over, which if cut it would be an Island: Upon it there is a pitiful Town without any Wall, with only a Ditch about it, twenty foot wide, and six or seven Foot deep, half fill'd up, encompass'd with a poor Rampart six or seven Foot high, and about fifteen Foot thick. This Town is seated about three hundred Paces from the Eastern shore; has a stone Castle, enclos'd within ano-ther
