Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. Xavier Hommaire de Hell
degraded a type of humanity, that the eye turns from them with deep disgust. Their filthiness is indescribable; the entrance of a single Jew into an apartment is enough suddenly to vitiate the atmosphere.
We had already had occasion in Odessa to see into what an abject state this people is fallen in Russia; but it was not until we came to Kherson that we beheld them in all their vileness. What a contrast between their sallow faces, disgusting beards, and straggling locks, plastered flat on the skin, their brutified air, and crawling humility, and the easy, dignified bearing, the noble features, and the elegant costume of the Jews of Constantinople! It is impossible to bring oneself to believe there is any thing in common between them, that they belong to the same race, and have the same rules and usages, the same language and religion. But the cause which has produced such a difference between two branches of one people, is a question involving political and philosophical considerations of too high an order, to be discussed here; all we can say, is that, in seeing the Jews of Kherson, and comparing them with their brethren of the East, we had evidence before us of the depth to which governments and institutions can debase mankind.
The streets of Kherson are thronged with these miserable Israelites, who carry on every kind of trade, and recoil from no species of occupation, provided it be lucrative. Their penury is so great, that they will run from one end of the town to the other for a few kopeks, and in this respect they are of much use to the stranger, who would be greatly embarrassed if they were not at hand, ready to render him every possible service. The moment a traveller arrives at an inn, in New Russia, he is beset and persecuted without ceasing by these officious agents, who place at his disposal their goods, their persons, all they have and all they have not. It is to no purpose he threatens them and turns them out a hundred times; they care little for abuse; and do what you will, they sit themselves down on the ground opposite your door, and remain there with imperturbable phlegm, waiting their opportunity to walk in again, and renew their offer. Many a time have we seen Jews thus spend four or five hours consecutively, without evincing the least impatience, or seeming to regret the waste of time they might have employed more profitably, and go away at last satisfied with having gained a few kopeks.
It was in the government of Kherson that the plan of forming Jewish colonies was first tried. Several were established in the districts of Kherson and Bobrinetz, and in 1824 these contained nine villages, with a population of 8000 souls, settled on 55,333 hectares of land. All the new colonists are wholly exempt from taxation for ten years; but after the lapse of that time, they are placed on the same footing as the other crown peasants, except that they remain free from military service for fifty years.
The colonisation of these Jews was no easy matter; at first, it was necessary to keep the most rigorous watch over them, to prevent them from leaving their villages. The colonists are all dependent on the governor-general of New Russia, and each of their villages is under the control of a non-commissioned officer of the army. I have not the least idea of the object for which the government founded these colonies, which, as far as agriculture is concerned, can be of no use to the country. Was its motive one of a philanthropic kind? I do not think so. I should rather suspect that the prospective advantages in a military point of view may have been the inducement, an opinion, which seems justified by the fact, that the Russian government has found it necessary, for some years past, to enrol the Jews by force in the naval service. The unfortunate men are chiefly employed as workmen, and I have seen great numbers of them in the arsenals of Sevastopol and Nicolaïef.
The aspect of Kherson is as dismal as that of Nicolaïef is brilliant and lively. Nothing is to be seen but dilapidated houses and abandoned sites, which give it the appearance of a town devastated by war. But viewing it from a distance, as it rises in an amphitheatre on the banks of the Dniepr, with its numerous belfries, its barracks, and its gardens, one would be far from suspecting the sort of spectacle its interior presents. Above all, one cannot conceive why a town in such a position, with a river close at hand, navigable for ships of war, should have been thus abandoned; but such has been the imperial will, and Kherson, completely sacrificed to Odessa, now shows scarcely any signs of life, excepting its great wool washing establishments, which employ hundreds of workmen, and its retail trade, which the Jews monopolise. The only remains of its past greatness the town has preserved, are its title as capital of the government, and its tribunals. The governor resides in it, no doubt much against his will; but many great families have forsaken it on account of the fevers prevailing in it during a part of the year, with more fatal violence than in any other region. They are occasioned by the wide sheets of water left behind by the inundations of the Dniepr, and which, finding no issue when the river returns to its bed, stagnate among the reeds, until the rays of the sun are strong enough to make them evaporate. Fetid and pestilential exhalations then rise, and produce malignant and typhoid fevers that almost always prove mortal.
The population of Kherson, like that of all the other towns in Southern Russia, is a medley of Jews, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Italians, &c.; a few French have been long settled there, and have acquired some wealth; some deal in wood, others are at the head of the wool-washing establishments I have already mentioned. Among the latter, there is a Parisian, who, by dint of washing and rewashing wool, and that too on another's account, has managed to amass nearly 12,000l. in less than eight years. The lavoirs of MM. Vassal and Potier are the most considerable in Kherson, giving daily employment to more than 600 men.
The Dniepr seen from Kherson, resembles a vast lake studded with islands; the views it presents are very beautiful, and partake very much of the character of maritime scenery. The estate we were going to lay on the other side of the river, and we had the pleasure of travelling about fifteen versts by water, through the labyrinth of islands, and a constant succession of the most enchanting views. We found horses waiting for us on the opposite bank, and in less than four hours we were at Clarofka, our journey's end.
M. Potier, the proprietor of Clarofka, is an ex-pupil of the Polytechnic School, who was sent to St. Petersburg by Napoleon, with three colleagues, to establish a school of civil engineering. In 1812, the government fearing lest they should join the French, sent them away to the confines of China, where they were detained more than two years. When our troops had evacuated Russia, and the presence of these young men was no longer to be feared, the Emperor Alexander recalled them, and gave them each a pension of 6000 rubles, to indemnify them for their exile. From that time forth, they all made rapid progress in fortune and in honours. M. Potier was for a long while director of the civil engineering institution. He is highly esteemed by the Emperor Nicholas, who wished to attach him completely to his court, by conferring on him a post of the highest importance, but M. Potier always refused, and at last succeeded in obtaining permission to retire. He is the son-in-law of M. Rouvier, who made himself popular in Russia and even in France, by being the first to introduce the breed of Merino sheep into Southern Russia. M. Potier followed his father-in-law's example, and has more than 20,000 sheep on his estate.
The estate of M. Vassal, another son-in-law and successor of M. Rouvier, is but a dozen versts from Clarofka. It is larger than many a German duchy; but instead of the fertile fields and thriving villages that adorn Germany, it presents to view only a vast desert with numerous tumuli, salt lakes, and a few sheep folds. These tumuli exact models of mole-hills, from ten to fifteen yards high, are the only hills in the country, and appear to be the burial-places of its old masters, the Scythians. Several of them have been opened, and nothing found in them but some bones, copper coins of the kings of Bosphorus, and coarse earthen utensils. Similar tombs in the Crimea have been found to contain objects of more value, both as regards material and workmanship. This difference is easily accounted for; the Milesian colonies that occupied part of the Crimea 200 years ago, spread a taste for opulence and the fine arts all through the peninsula; their tombs would, therefore, bear token of the degree of civilisation they had reached. They had a regular government, princes, and all the elements and accessories of a kingdom; whilst our poor Scythians, divided into nomade tribes like the Kirghises and Kalmucks of the present day, led a rude life in the midst of the herds of cattle that constituted their sole wealth.
Agriculture could never have yielded much in these steppes, where rain is extremely rare in summer, where there are neither brooks nor wells for irrigation, and where hot winds scorch up every thing during the greater part of the fine season. It is only on the banks of the rivers that vegetation