which however but few Armenian females were present, because they live very retired, and seldom shew themselves to strangers. I returned the following day from Nachtschiwan to Tscherkassk, where I staid but a few hours, and immediately made an excursion among the Calmucks settled on the opposite shore of the Don. These, like the Don Cossacks, to whom they are accounted to belong, are divided into regiments of 500 men, each of which is under a colonel and major (Jessaul). Only one company of these Calmucks, under a Ssotnik, was encamped here in their ordinary felt tents or jurtes, and they appeared to be in indigent circumstances. These Calmuck Cossacks have by right their pasturage between the Don, the river Ssal, and the great Manytsch, and are totally distinct from the Wolga Cossacks in the government of Astrachan.

one another, and consider them. selves as members of the same family. The more savage or barbarous a people is, the more does this difference influence its conduct towards strangers. It is very difficult for Government to efface these characteristic distinctions, in order to establish the necessary union in a political body composed of different nations. The progress of knowledge certainly diminishes the effect of these national distinctions. Hence it happens that the higher ranks in all nations have a considerable resemblance to each other: but knowledge is not easily diffused among the lower orders of society. The most enlightened governments have endeavoured to destroy these distinctions. Russia has at all times followed this great principle. The new divisions of France had the same object. England has at last admitted the Scotch and the Irish into her Parliament.

Religion for a long time had a striking effect upon politics. From the end of the 15th century to that of the 17th the character of the politics of cabinets was religious. The 18th century bears the character of the mercantile sys. tem: and that of the 19th is revolutionary. Various governments have adopted the principles of toleration but in some states it is political, without being religious; in others religious but not political. It is only in France, in Prussia, and in Russia, that it bears the double character of religion and politics.

The distribution of population according to the nations is one of the most interesting statistical in. quiries. The farmer is attached

to

to his fields, because upon them he has lavished his labours and the fruit of his savings. These fields are the only sources of riches, and consequently the possessors of them become by degrees the absolute masters of those that have none. Manufactures and commerce open a new source of riches independent of the territorial property. A third class of citizens interposes itself between the laLourer of the fields and the proprietors of estates. They are justly called the third estate. They belong to the whole world. Knowledge and the arts friendly to liberty, comfort, and tranquillity spread with the greatest facility in this class. The want of the third estate stops the progress of knowledge among a people of slaves; and the German nations, notwithstanding their feudal system, were only more fortunate in possessing this third estate some ages before other nations. The nobility and the clergy form a political body between the sovereign and the pation. Their number, their property, their privileges, require the greatest attention in order to be able to judge of the moral force of monarchies. The great armies kept up by all nations have established a military system in the midst of peace. This system, brought to perfection since the time of Louis XIV. and Frederick, II., has destroyed the finances, and overturned several states.

Formerly there were various states in Europe in which the sovereign was limited by the privileges of the people. Those provinces which had preserved particular rights sometimes rendered

the operations of government more slow and more difficult.

The origin of nations, then, religion, the different orders of society, and the particular rights of certain provinces, are the principal points of view under which we are about to contemplate the total population of Russia.

Ethnography makes researches. into the origin of people, and the smallest tribe is classed apart, provided it exhibits national diffe

rences.

The writer on political statistics attends to these differences only when they have a marked effect upon the happiness of the state.

We

Under the first point of view Russia contains nearly a hundred different nations; under the second, European Russia includes only three nations, the Sclavonians, Finns, and Tartars. might indeed include the inhabitants of Caucasus; but they are not numerous. Siberia, besides the Finns and Tartars, includes likewise the Samojedes, and the people of the Mongole and American race. But, this population's only in its infancy.

1. The centre of European Russia is inhabited by the Russians. On the west and south-west are found the Poles. We shall not uselessly multiply the subdivisions of the Sclavonian race by stating particularly the inhabitants of Great and Little Russia, the Cossacks, Serbes, Wlachians, Albanois, Arnautes, Bulgarians, &c. which occur as foreigners or colonists in the governments of the south. How many subdivisions of this kind might be made in France and England.

2. All the north of Russia, from Finland, by Archangel, Olonetz, Petersburgh, Novgorod, Wologda, Waetka, and Perm, is inhabited by Finlanders. Their numerous tribes are spread over the west and the east. In the west, by Esthlande and Livonia, as far as Courland; in the east, by Kasan, Nigegorod, Simbirsk, Resan, Tambow, Orenburgh, Saratow. They have passed the Oural, and are spread in the government of Tobolsk.

3. The Tartars occupy the south of Russia and of Siberia; the Tartars of Kasan, of Astracan, of the Crimea, of Caucasus; the Tartars of Tobolsk, of Tschoulym, Buchares, Teleutes, Abinzes on the Ob, the Tschoulym and the Tom; foreign Tartars of Chiwa, of Persia, of Turquestan; Nogaens in the Crimea and on the Couban, Baschkines, Metscherjaeques, and several other tribes mixed with the Tartars and the Finns.

The inhabitants of Caucasus are classed apart, but chiefly for the purposes of ethnography.

1. The Samojedes are the first nation of Northern Siberia. Their tribes extend from the Frozen Ocean along the Jenisei, as far as Baikal, and stretch from the Ob very far into the eastern parts of Siberia.

2. Their neighbours are the American tribes, the Tsuktsches, the Kamtschadales, and the inhabitants of the Aleoutes and Couriles Archipelagos.

3. In the south of Siberia occur different tribes of the people called Mongoles.

The distribution of the population of Russia cannot be stated.

with the same accuracy as in Aus tria, where the different nations have different privileges. The Russian government having given to all its subjects the same privileges, and imposed on them the same duties, never requires from the governors information respecting the national differences. Of consequence the statements of the population in 1796, 1803, and 1804, and several other particular reports which I have consulted, give us no information on the subject. Their principles of division are financial and military. The statements of the population of Siberia have more of this kind of facts, because they are necessary there in a financial point of view. I ought to repeat here that all my calculations are founded on the statements drawn up by order of government, which are always the most probable. I know well their imperfections; but I am aware also of the vagueness of all other calculations.

The most interesting question is, How much may we estimate, with the greatest degree of probability, the population of the nations not Russian?

I. Poles.

Poland in 1772, according to the researches of Count Tschatzki, a learned Polish author, had a population of 14 millions. Poland was entirely divided 23 years after between Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

Gallicia fell to the share of Austria. This province is divided into eastern and western, with Bukowine. An enumeration made in 1807 gives to western Gallicia,

Males