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XV.

tavskaia,

CHAP. size, locusts, various-coloured insects, and large green lizards, some of which were twelve inches in length. Having brought a letter to a Greek gentleman, whose commercial speculations, particularly in the fishery, had induced him to fix his residence in this country, we Margari found him at Margaritovskaia, another small village, four miles from Chumburskaia; and caused our carriage to be conveyed to his house. He was settled in a small colony of his own countrymen, the neatness of whose cottages plainly distinguished them from all the other inhabitants of the country. "I have retired to this place," said he, " to be somewhat removed from the shore; as the natives along the coast are not to be trusted." He gave us a supper of rice, milk, and pancakes, according to the custom of his nation; and we should have felt comfortable in his little dwelling, had it not been for the revolting appearance of toads crawling upon the floor. Reptiles, vermin, bad air, bad water, and bad people, are among the plagues of Oriental territories; but the small district we traversed in this part of ASIA, from the Mouths of the Don to those of the Kuban, may vie in natural horrors with any other we have since seen. The roads at this season of the year (July) were however excellent, and the post was very well supplied.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

PAGE 11, line 16. "A most interesting and remarkable phænomenon."-The same appearance has been since observed near Cambridge, as numerous witnesses can testify, and precisely under similar meteorological circumstances. The stars were, if possible, even more perfect in their forms than at Petersburg. This happened Jan. 16, at half-past ten A. M. during the year of the publication of this Volume. An account of it appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle.

P. 26, l. 8, 9. "Brought with them the pictures of the Saints."-Broniovius, in his account of the city of Chersonesus, has afforded historical evidence of the fact. "Ex illo monasterio duas portas æris Corinthii,.... et Imagines insigniores..... Kioviam deportavisse." Martini Broniovii Tartaria. L. Bat. 1630. The words Imagines insigniores can only apply to pictures: the Greek Church admitted idols of no other form.

Kioviam deportavisse."

P. 153. Note (1.) "It was founded, according to Augustine, in 1653, during the reign of ALEXIS."-The discordant accounts which have been published of the age of this bell are owing to a circumstance I neglected to notice: it has been more than once founded. The first cast was made in the reign of Boris Gudenof, and injured by a fire. The Empress ANNE, in 1737, caused it to be re-founded, with considerable augmentation of metal, when it was again damaged by fire. This explains the cause of the different statements made, concerning its weight and age, by different authors; and accounts for the figure of the Empress ANNE IVANOVNA upon its exterior surface.

P. 199, last line of text: "A distinction of dialect."]— According to the classification of the Sclaves by Schlozer, preserved in the Notes to Storch's Tableau de la Russie, tom. I. p. 15, that people admit of a seven-fold division; they were either Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Vendians, Illyrians, Hungarians, or Turks. Perhaps I may some day be permitted to discuss the interesting subject of the origin of these and other nations, where its introduction will be less extraneous. The three great progenitors, the Tahtar, the Arab, and the Goth', have transmitted to their progeny the clearest and most decisive marks of the sources whence they were derived. It is singular, that, from their opposite and devious track, the descendants of those families have all found their way to Europe. The Getæ, established by right of long possession, were found concentered as a nucleus, when the Sclavi and the Moors, by the most remote and unconnected operations, possessed themselves of the borders.

P. 339, 1. 22. "It bore then, as it does now, the name of Danaetz."-Observations of a similar nature may have been suggested to the compilers of the account of Muscovy, published in Holland, at the Elzevir Press, in 1630; as appears by the following passage: "Est et alter Tanaïs Minor, qui in Siberiensi Ducatu oriens (unde Dunecz Severski vocatur) supra Azoph in Tanaïm Magnum descendit." Descript. Muscoviæ, p. 8. L. Bat. ex Off. Elzev. 1630.

P. 348, 1. 21. « The name Åxay is a Tahtar word.”—The initial of this word is properly a diphthong, common in Sweden,

(1) By Goths, I would not be understood to mean the Barbarians who invaded the Roman Empire from the East; but the more antient descendants of the Geta, who, crossing the Dardanelles, peopled Thrace, and were the origin, not only of the Teutonic tribes, but of the Greeks: "In paucis remanent Graiæ vestigia linguæ : Hæc quoque jam Getico barbara facta sono.”

Ovid. Trist. lib. v. Eleg. VII.

consisting of A, with O placed above it. Mr. Heber therefore writes it with the A simply. (See Note to p. 345.) Its etymology may be found in the Exopolis, or Axopolis, of Ptolemy.

P. 386, Note (1). "At the time of making this extract," &c.]-In the Morning Post of the 6th of March 1810, the following extract was given of a private letter from Abo, the capital of Finland, respecting the atrocities committed there by the Russians; bearing date Feb. 6th, of the same year.

Extract of a Private Letter from Abo, the Capital of Finland,

6th ultimo.

"It is with the deepest regret that I communicate to you an account of the perpetration of atrocities, scarcely exceeded by the memorable massacre on St. Bartholomew's day at Paris, by the Russian troops, on the inhabitants of this ill-fated country. In violation of an express stipulation in the treaty for the transfer of Finland to Russia, a certain proportion of the inhabitants were ordered to be drafted, or rather impressed, into the Emperor's service. The despotic mandate was in general obeyed; and considerable levies were procured, before their destination was known to be the shores of the Euxine, to fight against the Turks. In the province of Savolax the alarm became general; and the people, conceiving that they were exempt from service for a limited time, ventured to remonstrate against what they considered as an infraction of the treaty. Count Tolesky, the Governor of Finland, to whom the appeal was made in the most respectful and submissive terms, invited the inhabitants, by proclamation, to repair on Sunday last to their respective churches, in order to obtain a redress of grievances. This artifice had the desired effect. The inhabitants, who are widely scattered, and difficult to be got at in detail, were collected in a focus; and while in 2 G

VOL. I.

anxious expectation for the proffered act of grace, and unconscious of the impending danger, they were suddenly surrounded by bands of soldiers, who, regardless of the sanctity of the place, and deaf to the voice of humanity, dragged the flower of the young men from the altars of their God, from the bosoms of their parents, and the enjoyment of all that was most dear to them in life; and moreover butchered, without any distinction of age, sex, or condition, those that attempted, by intercession or force, to soften the hearts or avert the deadly weapons of their remorseless assassins. In the parishes where those atrocities were perpetrated, no less than 700 unoffending and defenceless individuals have fallen victims to the relentless fury of monsters in a human form.”

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