gives no estimate of its height; but the master of the Blonde remarks, that 'coming from the south-west the land is very remarkable, forming thee capes or headlands; the southernmost (Cape Aia), very high, bluff, bold-looking !and, much like the North Foreland, but much higher;' and in a sketch of the coast line it is estimated at about one thousand two hundred feet–the same elevation which is assigned to it by Professor Palls. 'The next to the northward,' the master continues, 'Cape Fiolente,[1] is moderately high, with three notches like steps in it, and between these two the harbour of Balaclava. The northernmost' (preserving the ancient name of Cape Kherson)' is long and low, with a good lighthouse on it, well lighted.'
Whether, therefore, these two capes, or any !and higher than themselves, which may be in the rear of Carambis especially, can actually be seen at once, we have no certain authority to determine; and we will therefore close this portion of our subject merely by remarking that the Ram's Head supplied the ancients with the same name of Criû-Metopon for the western promontory of Crete; and that in the comparison of Cape Aia with our North Foreland, we have perhaps in the name of the town of Ramsgate the traces of the same fancied resemblance.
On the 16th of November, the Blonde quitted the harbour of Sebastopol, and stood to the northward along the coast, on which neither tree nor bush was to be seen, till she was off the point of Koslof, which Bishop Heber visited, and calls the ancient Eupatoria, but could remember nothing interesting that he had found there.
From Koslof the !and was found to be even, and moderately high to the northward, till it terminated in the low point called Cape Tarkhan, which is the westernmost point of the Crimea; from which begins the Cercinetis Sinus, still called the Gulph of Kerkinit, mentioned by both Arrian and Strabo, and leading up to the isthmus which joins the Crimea to the main-land. On this point is an excellent light, which was seen at the distance of eleven or twelve miles.
From hence the frigate stood across for the western shore, which she made near Ackermann, and then went up to Odessa; but she found the distance across to be eleven or twelve miles less than that commonly given to it upon the charts; and in sounding at twenty miles from the coast, she found twenty-two fathoms water, with a bottom of small stones and broken shells. Not even here, therefore, so close off the great estuary formed by the mouths of the Dnieper, the Bug, the Dniester, &c., finding any realization of the dreaded accumulation of alluvial deposit.
On the 17th of November, she anchored in seven fathoms water,
- ↑ Called Féling by Le Chevalier, vol. ii. p. 345.
