will but cut out strips of flesh from the back; if heavy, he will tear out the intestines, when the unhappy victim sinks and dies. In Russia every prominent criminal is condemned to die by this awful and disgraceful punishment. On the death of the Russian peasant the priest draws up, and the bishop signs, a passport to heaven, which is put in the hands of the corpse. On their return from the grave, priests and friends have a jollification at the dwelling of the dead, the first toast being "to the happiness of the soul of the departed, for he was a good fellow and loved grog."

Prominent in nearly every village is the church, which is usually of brick, painted white or yellow, inclosed with walls and surmounted by green domes, and a tower with a bell, on top of which is a cross above a crescent, illustrating the triumphs of Greek Christians over the Mahometans, and the ambitious designs of the Russians upon Turkey. Over the door of the church is a portrait of St. Nicholas, to whom the people bow in prayer as they go in. The sanctuary, which is concealed by a screen, is ornamented with pictures of the saints. There is a sanctum sanctorum with the holy table, above which, hung in a canopy, is a dove, as a symbol of the Holy Ghost. Open upon the table is the cross and a box holding the holy elements, and in both sides concealed choristers chant and repeat the prayers of the Priests. Before images of the Savior and the Virgin, candles are ever burning. The language of worship is the old Sclavonian, which, although rarely comprehended, is attentively listened to; the auditors repeatedly bowing and exclaiming, "God have mercy upon us. Although the Russians affect not to worship images, and to abhor what they term, "the idolatry of the Roman Catholics," yet in all their houses are images of the Virgin, to which they pay their adorations. Before the days of Peter the Great, the principal

difference between the Greek church and that of Rome consisted in the belief that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father only, instead of from the Father and the Son conjointly. Peter the Great announced himself as the Patriarch of all the Christians in his empire, and in connection with the later monarchs cunningly framed the spiritual so as to obtain all the temporal power, and so enlarged the breach between the two churches as to forever revent a junction.

Church and State are now firmly united in Russia; the Emperor is highpriest, and king, and is invested with absolute power over his subjects, alike in spiritual and temporal matters. The common Russian priest is destitute of influence, and often a drunken vagabond. He can marry but once; and if so unfortunate as to lose his wife is ever after obliged to remain a widower and dwell in a monastery.

The Russians, of all classes, are ridiculously superstitious and wholly governed by their religious emotions. Their many observances illustrate their Asiatic origin. The Russian, like the Turk, is both a fatalist and a fanatic, and on the least trifling occasion makes the most profound prostrations. As he enters his own door, before he eats, when he coughs, spits, or sneezes, or does other things indelicate to ears polite, of which, he of all frail mortals, is most certain to be guilty; he is instanter exceedingly devout-bows, crosses himself and in the most humiliating tone exclaims, "God be merciful to me

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a sinner." His superstitions thus control his whole life, and when we perceive that the Russian autocrat is his God on earth," the tremendous power of the Czar needs no further illustration. Vladimir was the first considerable town Cochrane entered beyond Moscow. He says, at this time, "my way of life, excited an interest in the peasantry among whom passed, several of them dividing their meals and sharing their fires and dwellings with me, with the most cordial good-will. I might nevertheless have considered myself fortunate if I could have reached Vladimir with only a sound drubbing instead of a broken head, because I could not ask in the Russian language for some kuass and fire to light my pipe. To prevent the recurrence of this evil, on the next occasion I entered a house without ceremony and helped myself. My hostess, with the assistance of others of her sex, drove me out at the end of broomsticks, which were not spared upon my back. The odds were fearfully against me; I was therefore content to bear my punishment without resistance. At Vladimir I inquired the character of my persecutors, and learned that most of those villages are inhabited by Raskolnicks or schismatics, a sect broken off from the Greek Church and more intolerant than even the Church of Rome. They are bound by the rules of their religion to deny food, fire, and water, and every assistance to all who are not of their own persuasion; and are even forbidden to hold intercourse with them. Notwithstanding the repulsiveness of these tenets they are said to gain many thousand proselytes every year. They are considered good agriculturists, and of the most sober and industrious habits, never drinking ardent spirits nor using tobacco. Among themselves they are a kind, friendly people, and excellent husbands and fathers; but toward the rest of the world are-what I too certainly experienced."

one.

At the town of Pagost, where he arrived half-famished and quite fatigued, not having tasted food during twenty-four hours, and walked forty miles, he considered himself fortunate in being able to put up" for the night in a cask. "Nor did I," says he, "think this mode of passing the night a novel Often, very often, have I, in the fastnesses of Spain and Portugal, found similar lodgings. Here I occupied the place of crockery, there that of wine; here in the land of liberality, there in that of nonentity." In this region he was again apprehended for smoking in the streets of a village bearing the euphonious name of "Selo-Bogorodskeye."

Cochrane was now in the richest part of central Russia. As he advanced through a beautiful undulating country, for miles and miles not a tree, not a hedge appeared-all was a boundless ocean of wheat, yellow for the harvest, and waving and nodding in golden-hued splendor, in the passing zephyrs. This was the province of New Novgorod, some two hundred and fifty miles east of Moscow. Its vast fertility, as a wheat-producing region, has probaably no equal on the globe-it is wonderful; and enough is raised to supply the whole of southern Europe, in case of a famine. Railways will fully develop the enormous agricultural capacities of the empire. The town of New Novgorod, which Cochrane next entered, contains about nine thousand inhabitants; but this small population is greatly enhanced at the annual fair, which is held at this the main central mart of the empire, when two hundred

thousand people of many nations flock thither with their produce and manufactures. A late American traveler, who chanced to be here at one of these annual gatherings, gives a glowing description:

"The people came," says he, "from Siberia, and the frozen seas; from the foot of the Chinese wall; from the confines of Russia; from beyond the Indus, to barter with men from the West. Apart from the native productions, nearly every article of foreign growth was in the market. There were various European and American imports from the tropics-the hardware of England, Germany and Russia-the cottons of America and the Carolinas; the silks of Persia and France; the damasks and velvets of Turkey; the perfumes and spices of Arabia, furs from Siberia, rubies and turquoises from Turkestan; the musk of Thibet; carpets of Heran, silks of Mascara; the shawls of Cashmere; jewels and fancy articles collected from the East and the West, and a great multiplicity of articles of utility or ornament, the enumeration of which would require a volume. The amount of sales which take place at this great gathering, in some years, exceeds thirty millions of dollars. In the most distant regions of Asia the policy and perseverance of Russia has opened an immense market for domestic fabrics. Caravans of thirty thousand men even, not unfrequently leave Orenburg traverse a great extent of western and northern Asia, frequent the distant fairs of Thibet, Yarkand and Bokara, and penetrate to, the remote regions of northern India. Thus sustained by commercial intercourse and secured by diplomatic art, Russian influence in the East is vast beyond all calculation, and is constantly increasing and extending from tribe to tribe, and province to province.

There were

The site of the fair was the river flat opposite the town. erected houses and booths, each street having its peculiar and separate commerce. The animation that prevailed and the innumerable variety of people were indescribable. The inhabitants of the Russian empire alone, are composed of about eighty different nations. With many of these various nations from the West were represented together with Greeks, Arnauts and Albanians from beyond the Black sea; Arminians, Persians, and Arabs from beyond the Caspian; Servians, Croatians and Wallachains, from beyond the Danube; Kirghises and Baschirs, from the tribes of hunters and herdsmen beyond the Urals; Bucharians and Kalmucks, Chinese, Turks and Tartars, and every variety of race gave to the place, the sounds and confusion of another Babel. The Tractirs, continues this traveler, or eating-houses, filled to overflowing, furnished the fare peculiar to almost every people. The cuisine of the East, rivaled that of the West in variety if not in excellence. Delicacies of the Parisian restaurant; dainties of the Persian nabob; the tongue of the reindeer from Archangel; grapes, olives, figs and melons from the northern provinces; delicious sterlets from the Volga, and sturgeon from the Caspian were in great demand, in equal abundance. Beside these dainties there was almost every kind of wine and liquors, even to London porter. The dissipation and extravagance that prevailed exceeded all belief. Numerous were the Persian Ghebers, or worshipers of fire, now ardently devoted to the wines of France; numerous the Mahometans, whose eccentricities of conduct set at defiance the grave precepts of the Koran; numberless the

Russian traders, who, since the late fast, had already regained the ruby nose and wonderful rotundity of figure.

Thousands of forlorn women, from the London street-walker, to black-eyed damsels who hailed from the Isle of Sappho, had wandered hither, and the saloons re-echoed with the minstrelsy of every land. We heard voices and harps of singing-girls from the banks of the Rhine and Danube; we were entertained with the music and dance of a party of Muscovites, whose performances reminded us of the exhibition of the Choctaws; and we witnessed the singular antics of a troupe of dark brown gipsies. The latter were the far-famed Tsigani, the wild Bayaderes. Their women are very beautiful and some of them have intermarried with the best blood of the empire. Their supple movements, melodious voices, and brilliant eyes, with lids and lashes dyed like those of the Egyptian Almahs, are skillfully employed to fascinate the Russian nobles. A famous Russian song, "Tene par verish," Believe not thou art beloved," was sung by the gipsy queen. The gipsy dance, although very much in step and movement like what they call at Communipaw, "a regular heel and toe," excels it much in quickness and animation,— the male performer holding himself erect, looking daggers and unutterable things, and the female indulging in wanton movements, while both are exhorted" to put it down," by a wild and excited chorus of the gipsy band. Under the guidance of our epauleted cicerone, we went almost everywhere, and wherever we went, we never failed to produce a sensation among the Orientals, who had never seen or heard before of the Amerikanskoi. A troop of mounted Cossacks, with lash, lance and fierce hurrah, running before the carriage, cleared the way, and ere the Captain could say 'sesame,' every door was opened."

CHAPTER II.

COCHRANE leaves New Novgorod-Voyage on the Volga-Curious Crafts-Songs of the Boatmen - Kazan - Tartar Customs -Siberia described Cochrane enters Siberia Tobolsk Exiles - Enters the Chinese borders - Banished Mandarins - Tomsk-Silver Mines-Irkutsk-Boat Voyage down the Lena-Yakouta Hunters-Singular CustomDreary Journey - Incredible Gluttony - Hardships -- Desolate Scene Life at Nishney Kolymsk-Fair with the Tchukteli-Perilous Journey-Okotsk-Kamtschatka-Dissolution of Airy Phantoms- Marries-Return.

Ar New Novgorod Cochrane changed his mode of traveling, and embarked on board a lighter on the magnificent Volga. This vessel was a flatbottomed boat of 250 tons, and in her took passage for Kazan, some two hundred and fifty miles eastward, near the Asiatic frontier. The traveler here sees upon this stream a great and singular variety of craft, among which are large clumsy boats, curiously painted and carved like Chinese junks, with masts painted in stripes like a barber's pole, and an image of St. Nicholas conspicuously placed on the stern of each. Some of them are of a thousand tons, and generally provided with a single mast, and a sail of prodigious size, which is handled with surprising facility. The boats are often provided with oars, to be used when the wind is unfavorable or dies away. The oarsmen, heavy-bearded savage-looking fellows, frequently relieve their labors by

songs, which, like all Russian strains, are of a wild, plaintive character. The voyage is monotonous, and the passenger finds little else to do but to recline at ease upon his mat upon deck, lazily smoke his pipe, and gaze upon a dreary uninhabited shore.

In a few days Cochrane reached Kazan, a large and flourishing town, inhabited by a considerable Tartar population, near the borders of Siberia. Having overrun all of Northern Europe, the successors of Ghengis Khan founded at Kazan the seat of their Empire, and from the gorgeous splendor of their tents they were distinguished as the Khan of the Golden Horde." Some three centuries since they were conquered by Ivan the Terrible; their mosques changed to Christian temples, their chiefs baptized by force, and nothing now remains to evince their former magnificence and splendor.

Next to St. Petersburg and Moscow, Kazan is the largest city in Russia, containing fifty thousand inhabitants; it is famous for its soap and leather, and is the principal depot of the trade with China and Siberia. One quarter of its population are Tartars, who reside together in a separate part of the city. They live in neat, comfortable residences, in forcible contrast to those of the Russians; these are ornamented by fine inclosed gardens, which, with their many-colored flowers, shrubbery and beautiful ornamental trees, impart to each the air of a terrestrial Paradise. Our traveler was much pleased with the Tartars. The men are very handsome, with athletic, manly figures, fine eyes, and bright, good-humored faces. The females are beautiful, and attract attention by their dark-brown complexions, large lustrous eyes, and jet-black hair, which falls in tresses upon their naked shoulders. These people vastly surpass the Russians in industry, generosity and intelligence; and are far more tolerant, charitable and hospitable. The latter find it impossible to religion, and carefully educate

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convert them, and they remain firm to their their children in the precepts of the Koran. Although it is allowed, they seldom have more than a single wife. A well behaved stranger, no matter what be his faith, wil have a kind invitation to enter the dwelling of a Tartar, where he will, perhaps, be astonished at the picture of domestic felicity that will be unfolded to his vision. Among the reminiscences of his childhood may be the awful story of old Blue Beard, or of some cruel husband called a Turk, or he may have grown up to manhood, with ideas of the superior social and moral excellencies of the Europeans. With all this, and particularly after what he has seen in European and Christian Russia, he will be able to rectify his prejudices, and receive better impressions of oriental life by witnessing the natural tone of refinement, temperance and chastity that prevail in the patriarchal households of the semi-Asiatic population of Kazan."

Cochrane, beyond Kazan, often passed through the villages of the Tartars, and was always received at their houses with a hearty welcome. He says, in speaking of these cases, that he gladly partook of their homely fare. "When I had it," says he, "I always treated their wives with tea they, however, with the usual deference of Mahometan females, respect the presence, not only of their husbands, but of any other male, too much to partake of it before them without their previous consent. These Tartars are a most