Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/124

102 portion of the sea. The one is of 'Master John Newberie,' who embarked at Tarrapea (Therapia) on the 6th of April, 1582; was for some days in the harbour of Siseboli, into which he was driven by stress of weather; anchored again under Cape Emineh; passed Verna, and 'a castle called Caliacca, which standeth upon a cape of land,' manifestly what is called Calagriah upon our charts; and finally entered the Danube by the mouth called Licostoma, where they had only eight feet water; and so proceeded into the interior of the country. The narrative of his voyage is altogether barres of geographical or other useful remarks.

The other instance is that of Captain John Smith, a military adventurer, about the year 1596, whose history is curiously tinged with the romantic spirit of the times. Having been taken prisoner by the Turks, in a victory they obtained against the Christians, and being recognized by his armour as a person of some consideration, he was sold in the market to a bashaw, who sent him to Constantinople, 'as a present to his fair mistress,' for a slave. Upon conversing with him, and trying him in several languages, and finding that he was an Englishman, and a man of various information, 'she took much compassion on him,' but not so as to put him into the dangerous predicament of becoming enamoured of his person; for we are told, that 'having no use for him, lest her mother should sell him, she sent him to her brother, the Tymor bashaw of Nalbrits, in the country of Cambrya in Tartaria;' so he went by land to Verna, and from thence across the Black Sea to the two capes of Taur and Pergillo, the former of which we may suppose, from its name, to have been in the Crimea. and thus extended his adventures into Tartary. Under these circumstances he cannot be expected to give us any great information respecting the sea he crossed; but still we shall have occasion to refer again to his account for one peculiar fact of which he was a witness.

Such, therefore, being the paucity of British adventure in this sea, it may not be deemed improper to put the fact of the Blonde's voyage, which forms so unique a feature in our naval. annals, into some more durable shape than that afforded by the daily journals. From the prevalence, indeed, of the plague, and consequent necessity of quarantine wherever she touched, together with the jealousy of the local Russian authorities, who seem to have been sufficiently alarmed at the apparition of this unaccustomed stranger, the account of her voyage presents us with little or nothing of discovery, or interesting adventure; and, in the absence of such exciting topics, I may perhaps be the more readily excused, if I combine with the subject a brief notice of some of the opinions, transactions, and settlements of the ancients, in this sea. Although of comparatively small importance in modern European history, it