The following work is partly the result of my own personal observation, and partly a compilation from some of the most approved authors who have written on the Crimea and the resources of Russia. It was prepared for the press during last winter, and the publication of it has been retarded by the attention which, for the last few months, I have been obliged to bestow on other matters. As the Crimea is still an object of deep interest, and as I am not aware that the notices I have collected have yet been presented to the public in a succinct form, I hope by the following pages that I may help to satisfy public curiosity and add something to the stock of information which we possess respecting the Southern parts of European Russia.

Having paid one visit to the Crimea in the year 1844, and two visits to Southern Russia in 1844 and 1846, I have been able to correct and verify the descriptive parts of the book by my own experience. The careful work of M. Dubois de Montpereux⁠[1] has been my principal guide on geology, archæology, and ancient history, and from his magnificent atlas I have borrowed a few illustrations. I have abstracted from the ‘Études sur la Russie’ of M. Haxthausen an account of the Russian navy and army, adding matter acquired from other trustworthy sources. To the above-named book and that by M. Tegoborski,⁠[2] both standard works on the internal economy of the Russian empire, I am much indebted; and although I think their accomplished authors write under a strong bias, yet their works are indispensable to those foreigners who wish to study the resources and organization of the Russian empire. M. Tegoborski has not been allowed to state his whole opinions upon some subjects, and the Censor has obliged him to make material alterations, particularly where he speaks of the condition of the peasantry. I have likewise alluded to a discussion which took place last year in the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes,’ in which this gentleman took a part. In the course of last summer a very able article appeared in the French ‘Moniteur,’ on the subject of Russian Finance, in which it was attempted to be proved that Russia was very weak on this point, and could not hold out for any lengthened period against the Western Powers. The subject was followed up by M. Léon Faucher in the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes,’ in a damaging article on Russian resources and finance. Soon afterwards an answer to this was sent from Petersburg, written by M. Tegoborski, who is an employé in the Bureau des Finances, and it appeared in the November number of the Revue, with a rejoinder by M. Léon Faucher, written just before his lamented decease. Notwithstanding the truth of M. Tegoborski’s observation, that Russia cannot be judged by the same rules as other European nations in matters of finance, owing to her totally different state of civilization, I think he fails to prove the main object of his article, that Russia can stand many more such campaigns as that of 1854. Russia must have little hope of persuading us of her power by other means, when she is obliged to have recourse to an article in a foreign periodical in the midst of a deadly struggle.

I have borrowed much from the work of M. and Madame Hommaire de Hell,⁠[3] and would refer any reader who wishes for vivid descriptions of Southern Russia, full historical information, and accurate scientific knowledge, to the original French work of this distinguished engineer and his accomplished wife. M. H. de Hell spent five years in the country to ascertain the difference of the levels between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and his work is accompanied by an atlas of rare merit.

I am indebted to many friends, and, among others, to Mr. Yeames, late Consul-General at Odessa, Mr. Crawfurd, and Mr. Blackmore, late chaplain at Cronstadt, for many valuable suggestions and corrections; and Mr. Lander has been good enough to revise the chapters on the shores of the Sea of Azof, with which no man is better acquainted. This accomplished gentleman was born in New Russia, and for many years has conducted the house of Yeames and Co. at Taganrok; and I may say with truth, that the eighteenth chapter is rather his than mine.

In Chapter V. I have especially to acknowledge several pages of valuable matter relating to the Asiatic races of mankind, for which I am indebted to a note by Dr. William Smith, inserted in his recent admirable edition of the great work of Gibbon. My little book pretends to be scarcely more than a compilation, and if I have anywhere else omitted to acknowledge assistance, it has not been from the wish unfairly to appropriate the labours of others.

I have also to thank the Rev. Walter Sneyd for the sight of a translation of a curious Italian MS. in his possession, describing the travels in the Crimea of one Nicholo Barti of Lucca in the seventeenth century.

My notice on the Russian Budget in Chapter VIII. is not so full as I could wish it to have been, and perhaps I may have made too high an estimate of the military expenditure. The other facts relating to it are taken principally from M. Tegoborski’s writings.

I have endeavoured, in the following pages, to be as accurate as possible, but more leisure than I have enjoyed would have enabled me to go over the ground still more carefully than I have done, and verify my statements upon various subjects by information gathered from other scattered sources.

I am fully alive to the defects and incomplete character of the sketches which I now venture to present to the public; and I ask, therefore, for indulgence if I have not contributed as much as I might have done to the instruction or amusement of my readers.