arskine in surface cost thirty rubles. The usual fuel is reeds, or a long species of bent grass; and even this is very costly, and gives little heat. Manual labour and free servants of all kinds are excessively dear.

"While we were here we had an opportunity of seeing the ceremonies of the eve of Palm Sunday; all the priests in the town and neighbourhood assembled at some little distance from the town, with their banners, crosses, and religious pictures; about two hundred people attended, a few with branches in their hands; the rest, in default of branches, with bundles of grass, and went in slow procession, singing hymns, to the principal Church. There was much crowd and much crossing and bowing, but no great appearance of devotion. We found these people much stricter in their observance of Lent than any of the northern Russians; yet, though we could only procure fish at the governor's and Madame Cashparof's, sucking pigs were sold openly in the market in vast quantities. They were thus sold to prepare for Easter, when every Russ family kills a pig; a singular kind of anti-Jewish passover. The population of Taganrog can hardly equal two thousand persons.

CHAPTER VII.

TAGANROG TO TCHERKASK.

Commodities of New Russia-Climate-Cossaks-Lent-View from Okhasi-Donskoy Cossaks-Rostof-Fishing of the Don -Armenian settlement at Nakitchivan-Colonel Abraamof Armenians-Axy-Calmuk tents--Dance of the ring-Tcherkask-Inundation--Cathedral-Bazar-Mahomedans--Platof the Cossak-Manners and appearance of the Cossaks-Government-Armies of the Don-Zaporogian Cossaks-Territory of the Cossaks of the Don-Armies-Education-Shooting party -Sepulchral crosses-Eastern ceremonies-Donskoy wineMorasses below Tcherkask-Flooded country-Story of Circassian prince. 1806.

To Richard Heber, Esq.

"MY DEAR Brother,

"Okhasi, half way between Tcherkask and Azof, April 7, 1806.

"I PROMISED in my letter to my mother from Tanganrog, to report progress again from Theodosia (ci-devant Kaffa.) An accidental delay of a night in one of the stanitzas of the Don Cossaks, in whose country, indeed, such delays are very frequent, gives me another opportunity of writing home, which I am unwilling to lose; especially as, from the irregularity of the post in these remote provinces, a letter of reserve is almost always prudent. I mentioned slightly in my last letter, our leaving Moscow, our being lost in the snow, our hospitable reception in the house of Princess Dashkof, and our delays, at first from deep and afterwards from melted snow; the hospitality we met with at Tula, and afterwards at Charkof. The first of these places is chiefly remarkable for its extensive government forges, where 1,200 musquets are made every week. The number of workmen is about 3,500. The iron is all brought on sledges

from Siberia. We found in the manager's deputy a very sensible plain man, who spoke English, and had served his apprenticeship in London. In the armory are piled a great number of arms of all forms and weights, according to the whims of Commanders-in-chief; for the cut of a bayonet here changes its fashion as often as a light-horse uniform in our own country. Since the time of Potemkin, five or six modes have all, in their turn, become unfashionable. The weapons of Paul's reign are prodigiously heavy and large; some of the swords are almost unmanageable. Since the late action, the present emperor has sent down a model which seems very good. It is like our usual musquets, and the bayonet fits on in a secure and ingenious way; in other points it resembles the Prussian pieces.

"When I mention the distance from which the iron is brought, you may conceive the advantage derived to Russia from the steady continuance of the frost, which creates a kind of natural and universal rail-road. While the sledge roads continue, a single horse can draw with ease a ton weight from one extremity of the empire to the other; a wonderful means of communication, which effectually compensates for the distance from the sea, and the difficulties of their internal navigation, from ice, floods, and extreme drought, which follow close on the heels of each other. We had heard much of the fertility and population of the country through which we were to pass; the first more than answered our expectations, the soil being in many places as complete manure as one can see.

"The population is, I think, inferior to that on the borders of the Volga, which to a traveller, is a much more interesting country, though an agriculturist would perhaps prefer the ploughed and naked hills of Koursk and Orel. Every thing which we have seen in the south of Russia appears of modern construction, and, except to the north of Tula, nothing exists which is not the erection of the Empress Catherine. There are no Tartar forts; no ancient convents or Churches; nor any of the marks of longrooted wealth which appear between Moscow and Kostroma. Their place is but ill-supplied by arcades of painted wood, pillars of stones, pyramids of lath and plaister, and mean timber houses arranged in wide streets and regular squares. These

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plans were chiefly given by the empress during her journey to Cherson; and though the effect at present is not good, will certainly, in process of time, people Russia with most magnificent towns. To the prosperity of the southern parts nothing seems to have been wanted but a vent for their commodities, which is now obtained by Odessa, and by the little town of Taganrog.

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This, as well as the Crimea and the other conquests of Potemkin, labour, as yet, under all the disadvantages of infant settlements, while the excessive scarcity of timber forms another inconvenience, from which such settlements are generally exempt. On the other hand, they have the unusual good fortune of being, in some measure, the natural outlet of the mother-country, all the great rivers of Russia, the Dwina excepted, falling into the Black Sea; and though the canal of Vishni connects the Volga with the Ladoga, yet, as the stream of the former is exceedingly rapid, all bulky articles can, at a much less cost, be brought southward than northward. This, with the recent discovery of coals, and the canal, which will certainly one day be executed, between the Don and the Volga, will produce wonderful effects, though not, I think, so great as some sanguine rivals of Petersburgh and Riga have endea voured to prove. The native commodities of New Russia are only fish and corn; the sweetmeats and brandy, of which they make vast quantities, are chiefly produced from the grapes and fruits imported from Trebizond and Sinope. The climate, notwithstanding its southern latitude, fully answers to Ovid's complaint of the Bosphorus and Palus Mæotis, which are indeed barely salt-water, and are still annually frozen over. It is dur ing this frost that their greatest fishery is carried on by means of holes in the ice, under which they drag the net; a mild winter is almost ruin to Taganrog. The neighbouring villages stink of fish so much, that we were a good deal reminded of Drontheim; and the case grew worse and worse as we advanced to the banks of the Don. The quantities of fish in this river absolutely exceed belief, though the present is not the season for the fishery; they may be in some spots ladled out with scoop-nets. The

Cossak villages are built close to the water, and at present are almost all flooded; many miles of low-land are overflowed every spring, and where the waters are subsiding, present a horrible view of morasses and reeds. These last are very valuable to the inhabitants, being, in fact, their only fuel. The Cossaks are all in easy circumstances; they are freeholders; and, as a nation of soldiers, are exempt from most taxes. They are better dressed than the Russians, and, what is seldom the case with fishermen, are cleanly in their persons and houses. They are all 'starovertzi,' (old believers, as they call themselves,) though the Russians tax them as 'roskolniki,' (schismatics,) and are much warmer in their zeal than any persons we have before met with. In general, the Russians, though they keep Lent strictly themselves, do not care how foreigners act; but at Tanganrog, when Thornton asked for a fowl, he received a look as if he had desired to have St. John's head in a charger. Milk, eggs, and butter are strictly prohibited; and the more religious people even hold fish in abhorrence. Their own food at this season consists chiefly of pickled mushrooms, onions, and wheat or millet fried in oil.

"We have been employed this morning in examining an Armenian settlement, to the number of some thousand families, who have built a town under the name of Nakitchivan, and carry on a considerable commerce, preserving the language and habits of their country. A pretty widow of Taganrog, who speaks English, and is herself an Armenian, the widow of a late Russian governor of Georgiessk, gave us a letter for the principal man in the town, a Mr. Abraamof, who has served in the army and has the rank of a lieutenant-colonel. His son, a little boy of ten years old, spoke French and was our interpreter. We were pressed to stay all night; but our time is precious, as the heats of the Crimea are fast approaching. We had hoped to get to Tcherkask to-night, but we found the road flooded, and the boatmen refused to take us till to-morrow morning. It is too much trouble they say, and they will not lose a night's rest for any foreigner living. This town is a singular mixture of Cossak houses and the black felt tents of the Calmuks, all fishermen, and with their habitations almost thrust into the river. From