and hot stoves, are very susceptible of colds: indigestions, unwieldiness, and shortened lives, are the natural consequence. This is the case with most; but many, who are aware of the ill effects of such customs, discard them; and are as active and hale as the stoutest of our countrymen.

Hence you will observe, that a climate is not to be judged by the general appearance of the people of fortune residing under its influence; habits of their own counteract its effects. It is from the peasantry we must draw our judgment: and I will venture to say, that in no country I ever saw more robust men than I met with in the natives of Russia.

There are only five degrees between Mosco and St. Petersburgh. The climate of the old capital is even more salubrious than the new. Being situated on high grounds, it has a great advantage. Two fine rivers run through its centre. The streets are all so spacious that no foul air can stagnate in any one of them. The atmosphere is generally clear, and the weather settled. In summer, though it is hot, there are no noxious vapours to render it dangerous; and in winter the air is so pure, so bright and exhilarating, that you seem to inhale the very elixir of life into your lungs. It is impossible to describe the animating feelings which these ethereal breathings excite in the breast; and as the bath of ether, through which we move, embraces every part, it seems to brace each nerve, and fill us with a spring of life enchanting and exhaustless.

In the following table I give you the length of the days at the summer and winter solstice. For instance, when in winter the day is the shortest, the sun rises and sets according to this calculation; differing only in the summer, by the day being of the greatest length when this order is reversed.

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By this also may be seen the degrees of heat and cold, according to Rheamur, and Farenheit.

To me the northern winter is far preferable to its summer. I mean at Mosco or St. Petersburgh, the (to Russians) milder regions, though with you, they would be deemed so penetrating, that were it not for furs, and the exercise the rigour of the climate compels us to take, we English might, if as thinly clad as the warmest of ye all in Britain, stand a good chance of becoming stationary, like poor Mrs. Lot, not a pillar of salt, but a huge erect icicle.

If the cold be then so intense in the degree of Mosco, what must it be in the latitude of Archangel! The inconveniences of so rigorous a climate, the want of society, and having many days when the sun is scarcely seen, rising at ten o'clock and setting at one; with the addition of being so far from all knowledge of what is passing in the rest of the world, must make a rational creature find such a life a very sorry pilgrimage, or rather an anchoritism, worse than that amid the arid deserts of Egypt. Yet to these apparently accursed spots, we find interest lead

men, as merchants, to pass many a year of their lives, shut out from every comfort of existence. Strange infatuation of man, to waste his days in providing for a period which he never sees! From youth to age he suffers every privation that inclement elements, cheerless labours, and joyless society can inflict, to amass a hoard of wealth, useless to him there: yet there he lives, gathering more and more, daily intending to return home to his native country and enjoy his riches; and and yet putting it off for another bag of gold, till death surprises him. Then on his cold bed, he finds that he has suffered and toiled in vain: a kindred, who had perhaps forgotten all of him but his name, were to reap the reward of his labours, while he filled a dismal grave beneath the frozen pole!

This terrible country, which seems as if it really lay under an interdict from Heaven, is formed of sterile rocks, morasses, and naked mountains. Rarely a living soul is seen to animate the dreary solitude; not an ear of corn ever ripens there; and the utmost of their harvest is a little poor barley: not a fruit tree of any sort ever cheers the eye; all is one wide waste of desolation. It is in these iron regions that we hear of travellers, nay whole families, being frozen to death. Water freezes as it falls; and birds drop from the heavens hard as marble. Often groupes of men and horses have been discovered on the high roads, in various attitudes, dead, and stiff, and petrified to ice. Instances have been known of boors being brought by their horses into villages and towns, lifeless, sitting upright with every appearance of existence, holding their whip and reins. This happens even between Mosco and St. Petersburgh, when the winters are particularly severe.

It is a very common thing for the nose, ears, or any other extremity exposed to the air, to be frost-bitten, which effect takes place unfelt by

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the sufferer himself; and if some friendly person is not passing by early in the operation to give notice of its seizure, the consequence is inevitable. If on the instant the part congealed be not well rubbed with snow, to recal circulation, the result is obvious; a few moments place the afflicted in a most mortifying situation, and a few hours deprive him of ears, fingers, or nose; a circumstance not enviable, although he has the consolation that he runs no risk of its ever happening again.

Having brought you to Archangel, though rather mysteriously, as I never was there myself! I shall give you a little insight into the interesting particulars of the place. I gained them from a merchant of great respectability, who had often visited that corner of the empire; so you may be satisfied of seeing as truly through his eyes as through mine.

Archangel is the capital of a province of the same name. It is so called from a monastery dedicated to the Archangel Michael, which is near the principal town. You may judge how cold the province is from its being bounded on the north by the Frozen Ocean. Amid these terrible rocks of ice, Sir Hugh Willoughby, the famous commander of our Queen Elizabeth, in seeking a north-east passage to China, was imprisoned with his whole fleet and perished. Chancellor, who commanded a small squadron under him, chanced to be driven by stress of weather into a bay near the mouth of the Dwina; there he landed and so became the first Briton that ever was known to set foot on the Russian shore. This very haven that gave him shelter, was that of Archangel: and soon after his arrival, such communications were made to the Tzar Ivan Vassilovitch II. that a trade was commenced between the two countries.

The principal articles of export were then potash, caviar, tallow, wax, hides, hemp, feathers, tar, yarn, beef, rhubarb, Chinese and Persian silks, cork, bacon, cordage, furs, &c. a curious assemblage! The commerce rapidly increased; and Archangel continued the sole port of any consequence in Russia, till the building of St. Petersburgh removed the principal trade to the havens of the Baltic.

The town of Archangel is comprised in one long street of wooden houses. It has a court of admiralty, dock-yard, and a fine monastery, which is the residence of its bishop. Extensive forests, the timber of which is a great article of traffic, grow in this government, and in that of Olonetz, its near neighbour. The exportation of larch being expressly prohibited, deal and masts of fir are the only timber the merchants can send to sea. Very few of our nation are now there; the founding of St. Petersburgh drawing from those inclement regions all those whose fortunes were not as barren as the soil. So much for Archangel! which, if I were to consult my own feelings, I would rather denominate Arch-devil! And considering the poet's description of the frozen as well as the burning hell, I do not think that I should name the borders of the polar sea amiss.

I shall now thaw your congealed veins, and bring you back to the vernal months of summer. During this season, Mosco, like most other great cities, loses most of its gay inhabitants. As soon as the sultry weather sets in, they take their flight to their respective country seats. From this cause the population varies almost incalculably in the two seasons of winter and summer; as each of the noble families seldom departs or arrives without sixty or seventy persons in its suite, besides