Black Sea, and seek some other destination, wherever agriculture flourishes, and is accompanied by a less exclusive system of customs. In the present state of things, the cultivation of corn in Egypt would be enough to ruin immediately all the ports of Southern Russia. With such contingencies before it, the government of Russia ought to ponder well before obstinately persevering in its present system. Mariners do not like the northern parts of the Black Sea, and once they shall have left them, they will return to them no more.
The year 1839 was most memorable in the commercial history of Odessa. The exports, consisting almost entirely of corn, amounted to 48,000,000 paper rubles. The harvests in the country had been very abundant, and as those of the rest of Europe were very unpromising, the demand was at first so encouraging that the merchants launched out into the boldest speculations. These were successful for a while, but disasters soon followed, and the houses which were supposed to have realised profits to the amount of millions, failed a year or eighteen months afterwards. Since that time trade has always been in a perilous state. In 1840, under the still subsisting influence of the movement of the preceding year, there was a diminution of 7,184,021 rubles; and in 1841 the first quarter alone presented a decrease of 6,891,332 rubles in comparison with the corresponding quarter in 1840.
On examining a general table of the exportation of Odessa, we see that during Napoleon's wars its commerce, completely stationary, did not exceed five or six millions of rubles. After the events of 1815, during the horrible dearth that afflicted all western Europe, the exports rose in 1817 to more than 38,000,000. In 1818 they fell without any transition to 20,000,000. During the war of 1828–29 they sank to 1,673,000. After the treaty of Adrianople, Southern Russia, being encumbered with an excess of produce, the exports again rose to 27,000,000. After this they varied from twenty to thirty, until 1839 when they reached the highest point they ever attained, namely, 48,000,000. We have already explained the causes of this factitious augmentation. From these data we see that the activity of the trade of Odessa has always arisen out of fortuitous circumstances, which are becoming more and more rare, and that it is by no means the result of the progressive development of agricultural resources: the country is, therefore, completely stationary.
It is also easy to convince ourselves, by simple comparison, that the commerce of Southern Russia is far from prosperous. In 1839, the most productive year, the custom-houses yield but 8,215,426 rubles; and ten seaports distributed over more than 400 leagues of coast, together with three land custom-houses, show on an average but from forty-five to fifty-five millions of exports, and hardly a third of that amount of imports; whilst Trebizond alone annually sends out more than 50,000,000 worth of English goods into the various adjoining countries.
CHAPTER V.
NAVIGATION, CHARGE FOR FREIGHT, &c. IN THE BLACK SEA.
Of all the seaboard of the East, the coasts of the Black Sea are those from which the expense of freight are the greatest. Different circumstances combine in producing this effect. 1. The amount of importation being inconsiderable, most of the vessels must arrive in ballast, or with a very scanty cargo. 2. The vessels are exposed to long delays in the Archipelago, and still more so in the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Fifty days may be taken as the average duration of the voyage from Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, or Trieste, to Odessa. It does not take longer to reach America from the same ports, by a voyage at once less difficult and more lucrative. 3. The Black Sea is situated at the extremity of the inland seas of Europe, and its coasts, which have little traffic, especially with each other, offer few resources to merchant vessels; so that if there is nothing profitable to be done at Odessa or Taganrok, a ship has no alternative but to take freight at ruinously low prices, or to return in ballast, and retrace some hundred miles of a route on which it has already incurred such delays. Certain merchants often take advantage of the distressing position of the masters, and for many years past, a part of the profits on some goods sent to the Mediterranean, has regularly consisted in the sacrifices to which the shipowner has been compelled. 4. The passage through the Straits of Constantinople subjects vessels freighted in the Russian ports for those of the Mediterranean, to a quarantine which, besides consuming from thirty-five to forty days, always entails considerable expense. It is generally reckoned that it takes a vessel fully six months to accomplish the voyage both ways between a Mediterranean port and Odessa, and to get pratique again, even supposing it to have tolerably favourable winds, and to obtain cargo almost immediately in the Black Sea, a thing which unhappily occurs very seldom. Now a Mediterranean brig of 275 tons, or 200,000 tchetverts' burden, has a crew that costs at least 800 rubles a month for wages and keep. If we add to this, for wear of rigging, insurance, and harbour-dues 400 rubles, we shall have more than 1200 rubles a month for ordinary expenses, without reckoning what storms and other casualties may occasion. Thus the cost of a six months' voyage will amount to 7200 rubles.
Before 1838, the average price of freight in paper rubles was as follows:
| Per Tchetvert. | Per 2000 Tchetverts, or 275 Tons. | ||
| For | Constantinople | 1.40 | 2,800 |
| Trieste | 2.33 | 4,666 | |
| Leghorn | 2.66 | 5,332 | |
| Genoa | 4.25 | 8,500 | |
| Marseilles | 2.40 | 4,800 | |
| Holland | 5.75 | 11,500 | |
| England | 7.00 | 14,000 |
From this table it appears that the freights did not pay the ordinary expenses of the vessels, with the exception of those bound for England, Holland, and Genoa, under the Sardinian flag.
Odessa has hardly any intercourse with the portion of the Black Sea coast subject to the Sultan, but it often furnishes cargoes for the banks of the Danube, to vessels of not more than twelve feet draught. These vessels usually proceed to Galatz and Ibraïla. Those which have no return cargo, touch at Toultcha and Isacktcha, to take in firewood; others ship a cargo at Galatz and Ibraïla, for Constantinople and the Mediterranean. Good prices for freight are generally procured in the Danube, particularly of late years. The progress of agriculture in the principalities, and the facilities met with in their ports, attract foreign captains, and many of them have entirely forsaken Odessa for Galatz.
The government supplies, the war in the Caucasus, and private speculations likewise afford employment to a certain number of vessels between Odessa and the Russian provinces of the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. The prices of freight in these cases depend on the greater or less demand, but they are always kept very low by the competition of Kherson lodkas (large coasting vessels). These lodkas ply at a very cheap rate, but they are exposed to risks which ought to make them less sought after than better built and better commanded vessels. The passage from Odessa to Taganrok, is tedious and expensive, above all for vessels which are obliged to be accompanied with lighters, in order to pass the Straits
