would be defended by seas for ditches, and these wholly untraversable by an enemy. It would thus be an unassailable fortress, exceeding in extent Great Britain and Ireland, with the most beautiful climate, under the mildest zones, and bearing the richest produce. Traversed by the sea breezes along its length, cooled by those from the snowy tops on the north and on the south. It is capable of bearing a population of twenty millions of souls; it is a 'virgin' soil for grain, and could inundate Europe with silk and cotton. The ancient and traditional character of danger which hangs over the Black Sea has been in modern times denied. It is not that the improvement of navigation has dissipated groundless fears, but it is that there is danger on two of the coasts, and absence of danger on the two other coasts. The prevailing winds, in consequence of the direction of the mountain chains, are east and west. Consequently, both to the east and west there is presented the lee shore of a shelterless bay. But it is the eastern shore that is peculiarly so circumstanced by its more rapid curvature and by its entire nakedness. It opens as a funnel, and a vessel there embayed with a westerly wind has no chance of beating off, no creek to run into, and no holding ground to trust to. The Russian vessels are forbidden to approach under any circumstances, except during the three summer months. And even in these their stay must not on any consideration be prolonged beyond four-and-twenty hours. Nor is this all. The vast discharge of waters from the Bug, the Dniester, the Dnieper, and the Danube, are all on the western side, and consequently a current is established downward to the Bosphorus. The overflow from the eastern lip of the aperture of the Bosphorus drives along the northern shore of Asia Minor, and sweeping round the Georgian Bay returns northwards along the Circassian coast. So that a vessel embayed in a westerly gale is driven by this constant current (increased by such a wind) on the sandy beach of the Bight of Poti, and in the event of escape from such a fate the iron-bound rocks of the Caucasus await it.

The shore of this bay is shoal. A vessel of any burden would have to anchor at least three miles from the coast. There is no tide to leave it dry, so that it may discharge its cargo into carts;

it has to wait there for lighters to come out to receive its cargo, to discharge which it would then have to seek the inner waters of the muddy Phasis. For this it would require that there were lighters, and the other conveniences of transport and trade, which are wanting.

As Colchis was in ancient times the passage of traffic between the East and the West, and a common centre for the populations of the world—for Strabo speaks of one hundred and thirty interpreters for tongues assembled at its Emporium-it is naturally to be inferred that the ways of the land and the sea were open and easy, and that that way was through the Bight of Poti and the plains of Georgia. Yet, on closely considering the records it appears that not even in ancient times was the shore under consideration used for the purposes of traffic. During the greatness of the kingdom of Pontus, largely indebted, no doubt, to its Bactrian and its Indian trade, the points of embarkation, and especially the celebrated Dioscurias, were on the northern Circassian coast, now represented by Soukoum-Kaleh. These stations being doubtless occupied with the goodwill of the natives, just as in recent times this same fort and Anapa were by the Turks. From Soukoum-Kaleh, the natives being friendly, an inland passage was open through a healthy country lying between the asperity of the mountains and the miasmata of the marches.

After the fall of the independent and great States of Asia Minor this traffic still continued under the Romans, but it was diverted from the Circassian coast without coming down to the Georgian coast. It found its issue to the sea, as descending from Erivan, through the analogous ports on the Turkish side, such as Batoum, Rizeh, and Trebizond. Behind the sandy beach of this low coast, marshy lands extend for many miles which are utterly impracticable. At remote intervals narrow causeways have been constructed across them, just sufficient for two horsemen to pass. Supposing the dangers of the sea to be disregarded, and the difficulties of disembarkation to be overcome, and troops. landed, or provisions deposited on the beach, even then would little progress have been made towards their being forwarded to their ultimate destination. For if the Deona, on the other side of the Black Sea, is called the Valley of Death,' this might be

6

termed the Home of Death.' The encampment of the evening would become the hospital or the churchyard of the morning. Neither could cattle or men be brought there to carry away the provisions, nor could the troops landed issue into the healthier country in sufficient time to effect their retreat. These circumstances being perfectly well known no orders could be obeyed, issued with a view of sending detachments or provisions by this route. The coast is closed by the sea in the winter months, by the malaria in the summer months. Thus it is, that in no need, however great, was Russia able to send supplies by this route. Thus it was that Sebastopol never was of any active service to Russia.

The construction of Sebastapol was the vastest conception that ever entered the mind of the Russian Cabinet. Its own consciousness of its act is expressed in the name given to it, which may be rendered 'City of Veneration,' or 'City of Empire.' The great maritime expedition fitted out by Peter, at Astrachan, against Persia, and the pertinacity with which Russia has insisted on the exclusion of Persian vessels from that sea, may lead to the inference that the Caspian, at least, is available for warlike purposes.

It is commercial navigation which furnishes the sailors and soldiers for war. Such trade existed in the time of Peter; not so now. The depopulation of the neighbouring countries and the diminution of the waters from the disappearance of the forests, the encroachments of the sands upon the Eastern Steppes, and the rapid shoaling of the waters of the Caspian Sea, have changed the country in value no less than in aspect. Every year some creek is no longer accessible, some district goes out of cultivation, some village becomes extinct, or some tribe decamps.

The navigation of the Caspian presents greater difficulties than that of any other sea; being shut in from the ocean, it loses the advantage of experience and dexterity in its sailors, and can receive no supply, either in regard to qualification or numbers. It has no tides; it has no islands, capes, or protected lee shores. It is exceeding narrow in the direction of the prevailing winds, and a large portion of it is so shallow that vessels go aground even when out of sight of land. During a great portion of the

year it is wholly unfit for navigation. The vessels are of the rudest construction, and the worst materials, and are called skhoutes. They are obliged to put to sea empty from Astrachan; twenty miles from shore they take in half their cargo, and it is not till they are put out one hundred or one hundred and twenty miles that they can complete their loading. The navigation of the Volga itself is in like manner interrupted by the shoaling of its waters, and every year brings a change for the worse.

In China, Russia, since her defeat of 1688, remained wholly in check until recent years, and now she has been effecting the most wonderful and rapid progress. Here the European Powers have been brought into play, a pretext being available—first, of objects special of their own as against China, and then the old one of jealousy of Russia, and the necessity of counteracting her. Gustavus III. observed that As Russia advances and becomes known, new enemies spring up under her feet, but she overcomes this resistance through her influence over Cabinets at a distance.' ANDREW T. SIBBALD.

6

THE

ART. III. GAELIC HISTORICAL SONGS.

HE literature of the Celt has of late received attention enough to make some reparation for the neglect it previously suffered among the Teutonic races which had thrust the Celt into corners and refused to know anything concerning his poetry or legend. Within the past generation a large part of this has been made accessible to those who had previously no means of penetrating the veil which a language and idiom, so widely different from their own, threw over Celtic ways of thought and expression. The labours of native and other scholars, both British and Continental, have by translations and otherwise laid the more ancient legends of the Cymry and Goedel open to the student of folklore; the Irish annals have been worked up by native scholars, and attempts have been made to convey in translations some idea of the nature of the later poetic literature of the Irish and Scottish Celt. In the more immediate interests of the Celtic

student much has been done by the facsimile reproductions of the oldest Irish MSS, and by such compilations as J. F. Campbell's Leabhar na Feinne,' and almost every year sees important additions to these texts. The folklore of the present-day Celt has also been largely supplemented since the publication of Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, and has every prospect of being still more increased.

Up to this time far more has been done to familiarize those who are not Gaelic readers with the prose literature than with the poetry of the Gael. The reason is not far to seek. 'It has always been the misfortune of this language to suffer in translation' is a remark which, though perhaps not made in sober earnest, is one of real significance. Every one who undertakes to render Gaelic verse into another tongue feels that his texts suffer sadly in the process. The Gael naturally explains this as a proof of the superiority of his own tongue, but the reason is probably very different. All Gaelic verse depends far more on its form than on its matter; the thought may be as trifling or trite as possible, but if there is harmony of sound, the Gael is satisfied. The recurrence of a vowel-sound makes more impression on him than the deepest thought. This demand for melody reacts on the poet and prevents him from following out any logical train of ideas, it being quite evident that the more involved the verse is, the more impossible it is to keep the sense as well as the sound. The extraordinary complications of rhyme which make Gaelic verse so harmonious are fatal to any depth of thought, even if the Gael had ever shown himself much given to this. Accordingly the more lyrical the metre becomes, the more difficult it is to narrate even a simple fact in it. Even the Ossianic ballads would be impossible in most of the metres used by the Gael during the past three centuries, just as the lays of the Edda could never have been done in the later verse-forms of the Skalds.

The beauty of Gaelic poetry being thus much more one of sound than of thought,* makes translation in the ordinary

* James Macpherson was well aware of this defect, though probably led to emphasize it by his desire to depreciate all Gaelic poetry, except such as