ngular
construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks framed of timber
only, without the least mixture of iron, and occasionally covered with
a shelving roof, on the appearance of a tempest. [103] In these floating
houses, the Goths carelessly trusted themselves to the mercy of an
unknown sea, under the conduct of sailors pressed into the service,
and whose skill and fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of
plunder had banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness
of temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence, which is
the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of such a daring
spirit must have often murmured against the cowardice of their guides,
who required the strongest assurances of a settled calm before they
would venture to embark; and would scarcely ever be tempted to lose
sight of the land. Such, at least, is the practice of the modern Turks;
[104] and they are probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to
the ancient inhabitants of Bosphorus.

[Footnote 95: It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical History
of the Tartars, p 598.]

[Footnote 96: M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at Caffa, in
his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont habite les bords du
Danube]

[Footnote 97: Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

[Footnote 98: Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of Bosphorus were
the allies of Athens.]

[Footnote 99: Appian in Mithridat.]

[Footnote 100: It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius, vi. 21.
Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three days' march of
the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]

[Footnote 101: See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the sincerity
and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great war of his nation
against the kings of Bosphorus.]

[Footnote 102: Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

[Footnote 103: Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were called
Camaroe.]

[Footnote 104: See a very natural picture of the Euxine navigation, in
the xvith letter of Tournefort.]

The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the left
hand, first appeared before Pityus, [105] the utmost limits of the Roman
provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and fortified with
a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance more obstinate than they
had reason to expect from the feeble garrison of a distant fortress.
They were repulsed; and their disappointment seemed to dim