difficult to gain a true knowledge of our own characters, we ought not to consider the task so easy to comprehend that of others. Some persons have a happy facility in seizing the characteristic points of a nation: and none was more eminently gifted with this power than Peter the First. I will transcribe a specimen; and instead of receiving the poor pittance of my opinion on one country, you shall be enriched with the judg ment of so great an emperor' on several. It was his estimation of the foreigners whom he encouraged to come to his new capital.

"You may give to a Frenchman (says he) liberal pay: he never amasses money, and loves pleasure. The case nearly answers to the German; only he spends what he labours for in good living, not on the gay vanities of the Frenchman. To an Englishman more must be given: he will enjoy himself at any rate; should he even call in to his aid his own credit. A Dutchman rarely eats enough to pacify nature; his sole object is economy: less, consequently, will serve him. An Italian is by nature inoculated with parsimony: a trifle, therefore, will do for him: almost out of nothing he will contrive to save; making no mystery of it, but acknowledging that he serves from home with no other view than to amass money to enable him to return with affluence to the heaven of Europe, his own dear Italy."

I am now preparing to make a visit to Mosco, the ancient capital of this empire. There many of the oldest families of consequence reside; living in a state of lordly hospitality appropriate to their rank and highly honourable to their magnificence. From thence I shall send you more satisfactory accounts; being then enabled to speak more correctly on the native and unsophisticated manners of the Muscovite nation. Many hundred miles shall I travel before I again subscribe myself your faithful friend.

LETTER XVII.

Mosco, February, 1806.

THE Russian winter is now far advanced: and as the mode of travelling is so different from that of summer, and indeed from any thing practised in countries where the frost is less severe, I shall give you a view of our accommodations before

we set out.

On February the twenty-second, old style, Mr. Hof Northamptonshire and myself proposed for our mutual comfort that the trip should be made together. With passports properly registered, and an order to the posthouses to furnish us with horses to the number of seven, we began our movements. The expense of this licence is at the rate of a kopeck a verst for each animal, according to the number the traveller deems necessary to take him to the end of his journey. The receipts belong to government. To the furnisher of the horses at each stage, we afterwards pay two kopecks as his remuneration.

The vehicle we purchased for ourselves was a Kabitka; a well contrived and snug machine, not dear, costing only thirty five rubles, that is, five guineas British. Its form is simple, being nothing more than a large wooden cradle, fixed on a double keel or skate of the same material, strongly shod with iron. Our trunks were placed at the head and foot; and filling the intermediate space at the bottom with hay, mattrasses, pillows, and other soft accompaniments, we wrapped our persons in pelisses, furred boots, caps, &c. and laying ourselves prostrate, side by side, in the bed we had made, were ready to sally forth in as regular a northern array as any veteran of the Russian winter. Our domestics followed in a barouche, deprived of its wheels, the better to facilitate its union with the sledge; but, like many other ill suited matches, the connexion became so uneasy to both parties that a separation was constantly threatened; and a most troublesome companion we found these two made one in our journey.

Being apprised that there were no decent inns on the road, we provided all sorts of conveniencies for ourselves and suite. Indeed, we had received so terrible a description of the houses we were to stop at, while the horses were changing, that I feared from heat, smells, dirt, and vermin, that I should not be able to endure them a moment; and so took every precaution against entering them at all if it could be possible. These places were the dwellings of the postmasters, whose only article of nourishment for the wearied traveller is coffee or tea.

The mode of attaching the horses to this vehicle is different from that used on similar occasions in any other country that I have ever seen; they being harnessed (generally six in number) abreast, like the chariots of old. The traces are of ropes; and the driver sits on a box in front of the kabitka. The steeds, which thus imitate the fashion of the heroic ages, unfortunately in appearance are every thing that is wretched and mean: they are diminutive, with matted coats and clotted tails and manes. Indeed, their aspect is so pitiable to an English eye, that you expect to see them stretched on the snow, never to rise again, long before they have measured half a dozen versts. With such exquisite halting places in perspective, and promising animals to draw us towards them, after a series of inconvenient delays we at last, late in the day of the twenty-second, moved off.

We soon arrived at the barrier gate, and producing our credentials to the officer on guard, were allowed honourable passage; and again putting our cattle to their speed, pressed forward towards the next stage with a swiftness incredible. We saw that our horses were like those of the Cossacs, of bad appearance but radical worth; and reclining in our cradle, committed ourselves to their guidance with feelings of confidence and ease most luxuriously delightful.

We had not travelled long before we found ourselves on an extensive plain of snow, bounded by black forests of birch and thick fir. The road was excellent; and the rapidity of our carriage seemed to increase rather than diminish with the distance. Before we reached the first post, we passed many travellers embowelled in like manner with ourselves; and also saw several curious looking villages. As they all resemble each other ́in

architectural arrangement, by describing one, I shall give you a tolerably accurate idea of the whole of these rustic residences throughout the empire. Scarcely any difference is distinguishable amongst them all, unless it may be in the size or materials of the church, or in its being built with or without a steeple.

The houses are constructed of wood, the walls being compiled of long round beams, or rather trunks of trees, bereft of their limbs and bark, laid horizontally one on the other with nicety and neatness. Not a nail is used in this erection; the building being so contrived as to be taken down at pleasure, and reerected in a few hours on any other spot. I am told that at Mosco there is a house market, where you may purchase small villages ready made: villas also, and houses of every size and pattern, fill up this extraordinary magazine; so, that if any one happens to be burnt out in the morning, before night he may have a room at least erected at a cheap rate, to cover him.

Most of the villages consist of one street only, pretty wide, presenting to the eye a row of gable ends, resembling the ancient towns in Britain. In the wall, are windows of four panes of glass, with curious carved ornaments a-top; and on their shutters (which open outwards) a variety of flowers, stars, and strange devices are painted in the rudest taste, and often blended with gilding. The national admiration of painting and sculpture is everywhere manifested on the façades of the cottages. The latter is certainly the best executed; and in some of their wild carvings frequently may be discovered the germs of real talent. Every house has a gallery or ballustrading below, besides the roof projecting from the face of the building, to defend its inmates from the sun during summer, and the weather in the severer season. I understand that no habitations are cooler than these during the hot months, nor any warmer through the whole of the cold. A sort of double gate separates each from its neighbour, and leads into a large courtyard filled with sheds, old kabitkas, and other carriages of the country; besides an accumulation of dirt, rotten straw, jaded horses, pigs, and other nuisances; completing a museum of nastiness scarcely to be found in any other civilized spot on the globe.

I have made a sketch of one of these villages which will assist you in comprehending my description. At the posthouse you observe a pole, on which is suspended a straw wreath and four or five tassels. I must plead ignorance of this emblem; and on inquiring, I found the postmaster no wiser than myself.

Nothing interesting presenting itself, we travelled onwards, through towns and villages, and over a dreary country, rendered ten thousand times more so by the season. All around was a vast wintry flat: and frequently not a vestige of man or of cultivation was seen, not even a solitary tree, to break the boundless expanse of snow. Indeed, no idea can be formed of the immense plains we traversed, unless you imagine yourself at sea, far, far from the sight of land. The Arabian deserts cannot be more awful to the eye, than the appearance of this scene. Such is the general aspect of the country during the rigours of winter; with now and then an exception of a large forest skirting the horizon for a considerable length of way. At intervals, as you shoot along, you see openings amongst its lofty trees, from which emerge picturesque groups of natives and their onehorse sledges, whereon are placed the different articles of commerce, going to various parts of this empire. They travel in vast numbers, and from all quarters, seldom fewer than one hundred and fifty in a string, having a driver to every seventh horse. The effect of this cavalcade at a distance is very curious; and in a morning, as they advance towards you, the scene is as beautiful as striking. The sun then rising, throws his rays across the snow, transforming it to the sight into a surface of diamonds. From the cold of the night, every man and horse is encrusted with these frosty particles; and the beams falling on them too, seem to cover their rude faces and rugged habits with a tissue of the most dazzling brilliants. The manes of the horses, and the long beards of the men, from the quantity of congealed breath, have a particularly glittering effect.

Novgorod was the first place of consequence that lay upon the road. On entering from the St. Petersburgh side, a long, high range of brick wall presents itself; the ruined towers and battlements, some of which are very interesting, being quite of a different charactered fortification from that of any ancient

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