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Rh solutely necessary to be spent in even a cursory examination.

"Perhaps, after all," said Van Mitten to himself, "perhaps I may be able, in passing, to obtain a light impression of this antique Chersonese which has been so justly praised."

But it was not to be. The chaise continued its course by the shortest way, following an oblique line, from north to south-west, without passing through the centre or touching the southern shore of the ancient Tauris. Indeed, such a route as Van Mitten would have followed had been vetoed at a consultation wherein he had no voice. If, by passing through the Crimea, they could shorten the tour of the Sea of Azof—which route would have lengthened the journey one hundred and fifty leagues at the least—they would gain by cutting direct from Pérékop to the peninsula of Kertsch. Then, from the other side of the Strait of Jenikale, the peninsula of Taman would offer a regular passage to the Caucasian territories.

So the chaise continued its way along the narrow isthmus to which the Crimea hangs like a great orange to a bough. On one side is the bay of Pérékop, on the other the marshes of Sivach, better known under the name of the Putrid Sea—a vast tarn fed by the waters of the Tauris and the Sea of Azof, to which the cutting of Ghénitché serves as a canal.

The travellers, as they passed, were able to observe the Sivach, which is scarcely three feet deep, and in which the degree of saltness is almost at "saturation point" in certain places. Now as it is in such spots that the salt crystals are deposited, naturally the "Putrid Sea" could be made the most productive salt-marsh in the world. It must be confessed that the odours of the Sivach are not pleasant. The air is impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. The fish that penetrate into the lake are quickly killed. The Putrid Sea resembles in this respect the Lake Asphaltites in Palestine.

The railway from Alexandroff to Sebastopol traverses this marsh. So Seigneur Kéraban heard with horror the whistling of the locomotives, and the rumbling of the trains