As to the other Alans, who, according to Reineggs, dwell to the north of the Lesgi, I doubt their existence. In general, the traveller should make it a rule to follow up every notion that has been furnished us by Reineggs, and to sift it till he has decided how much ought to be retained and how much rejected. His work, which was not intended to be accurate, since the author was a kind of adventurer, swarms the more with errors, as it was published since the death of Reineggs.'

In the shape of a supplement to the instructions, is given an account of the Polowzians; a nation of unknown origin, who inhabited the immense levels or Steppes lying between the Don and the Wolga. The name of this people is mentioned for the first time in Russian history, in the year 996 of the Christian æra; and the two succeeding centuries contain various notices of their predatory contests, till, in the year 1296, they cease to be described by that name in the Russian annals. An abstract of their history during the period in question is here given (p. 18. et seq.), and affords the first specimen of that defective style of composition to which we have already alluded, and which unluckily pervades all the historical part of this volume.

We are aware that it is no easy matter to give method and interest to the annals of a barbarous tribe: but, in this age of improved composition, it is the part of a writer to exclude mere matters of detail from the body of his work, and to throw them into an appendix. Had M. Klaproth confined himself, in the text, to general views and useful illustration wherever the subject suggested any thing in that shape, his readers would have derived from its perusal both information and satisfaction; while the painful task of studying strange names, and repetitions of massacres, might have been performed only as far as it was necessary to give once for all a distinct impression of so revolting a subject. Of this arrangement, however, simple as it appears, M. Klaproth seems to have had no idea; since he introduces one narrative after another, without any attempt at general reflection. We quote, as a specimen, a passage containing an account of the country called the "government of the Ukraine villages:"

It is chiefly composed of what were formerly termed the Slobodian Regiments, whose territory extended on the east to the Don, on the south to the sea of Asow and the Dnjeper, on the west to the river Worsklo, on the north to the sources of the rivers Psiol, Donez, and Oskol. It was bounded by ancient Russia; on the east by the Polowzians; on the south by the Chasarians and Petscheneges, and formed no inconsiderable part of the grand-principality of Kiew.

The towns and other ancient settlements in this quarter were often plundered in the incursions of the Polowaians and Petscheneges, but

from

from their hills they prevented those marauders from extending their ravages to the interior of Russia. In the thirteenth century, however, this country suffered infinitely more severely from the invasion of the Mongols and Tartars from Great Tartary, under the conduct of Tuschi-chan a son of Dshingis-chan; and on the 16th of June 1223 the disastrous engagement of the Russians with the Mongols on the river Kalka or Kalmus was the commencement of a tremendous and long continued devastation of the most fertile part of Russia. The people having lost their princes, their generals, and their judges, abandoned their paternal abodes, and removed further westward, hoping by flight to save at least their wretched lives; and the victo rious Mongols having destroyed the towns and laid waste the country, turned from the Dnjeper toward the east. There also they slaughtered a great number of the inhabitants; and after subduing the country on the Don and Donez, and penetrating to the Taurian Cher sonesus, they returned home to the great Dshingis-chan.

In 1237 Batu-chan, grandson of Dshingis-chan, son of Tuschichan, and sovereign of Kipdschak, had subdued the Wojagarians, and laid waste with excessive slaughter the grand-principality of Wladimir, then the most considerable of the Russian principalities, with several others contiguous to it; on which in 1239 he turned his arms against the south of Russia, where his Tartars, after destroying the principal towns, likewise made themselves masters on the 6th of December 1240 of Kiew the capital, which now became the residence of viceroys appointed by the Tartar chans to govern the country and to collect the imposts.

Thus from 1240 the Russian princes reigned over the grandprincipality of Kiew and the contiguous principalities partitioned off from it, under the supremacy and protection of the Tartars, during a period of thirty years, till Gedimin, grand-prince of Lithuania, first subdued Volhynia and the other southern and western principalities of the Kiew division, and, after the flight of Stanislaw Prince of Kiew to Rjäṣan, also made himself master of Kiew itself.

The terror of this conqueror's name preceded his armies, and soon reduced the north-eastern principalities of Kiew to subjection. Gedimin consigned the government of his extensive conquests to his cousin Prince Mindow, and returned to Lithuania.'

- The descriptive part of the volume consists in a great mea sure of similar collections of minute and disjointed particulars. That such a work would be amusing in the perusal could hardly have entered into the imagination even of the author; and the only way to give it a value with the public was to study the means of rendering it useful to a patient inquirer. A distinct map, and a copious index, were primary requisites: but for either of these we look in vain."

Tcherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossacks, is already known to those of our readers who have seen our report of Dr. Clarke's first volume of travels. On account of the inundations occurring in the months of April, May, and June, most of the houses are

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erected

erected on high poles; while lofty wooden bridges run along the streets, with smaller bridges leading to the door of each, house. As the waters leave a great quantity of mud, which produces exhalations, the town was extremely unhealthy; and, as the removal of these wooden edifices was no formidable affair, another city, under the name of New Tcherkassk, has been lately built on a branch of the Don, at a distance of four. or five miles from the former capital.

While he was in these parts, M. Klaproth took an opportunity of travelling eastward among the Calmucks. The manners of those savages being already sufficiently known, he deems it superfluous to enlarge on them: but he expatiates at great length (from p. 88. to 145.) on the history and customs of the Mongol tribes, of whom he considers the Calmucks as a branch. In his opinion, it is an error to blend the Tartars with the Mongols, because they are different not only in features and language but in origin; the ancestors of the Mongols having inhabited, according to him, the borders of the lake of Baikal in eastern Siberia :

No people of Asia are so strikingly distinguished by their phy siognomy and the figure of the skull as the Mongols. They exhibit almost as wide a deviation from the ordinary conformation of man, as the negroes in Africa; and it is truly remarkable that this cast of countenance is almost indelible even by long intermixture with other nations; and that where this singularity once prevails it can scarcely ever be eradicated. A Mongol might marry an European woman in the midst of Europe, and his latest descendants would nevertheless retain the features of Mongols, as abundance of examples in Russia attest. The characteristics of this physiognomy are the corners of the eyes next to the nose running back rather obliquely, and completely filled up; small eye-brows, black, and but little arched; a remarkably broad but at the same time small and flat nose; promiThe ears are large, and nent cheek-bones; round face and head.

stand out from the head; the lips broad and thick; and the chin short. A beard composed of detached strong hairs, which soon grow gray, and entirely fall off in advanced age, is likewise a peculiarity of this nation.

The Mongols are for the rest of middle size; the women may be pronounced small, but yet they are delicately shaped. There are scarcely any cripples among them; but crooked legs and thighs are a very common personal defect, which arises from the circumstance that infants already in their cradle are constantly placed astride on a kind of spoon, and, as soon as they can go alone, are obliged to travel on horseback upon every removal to a fresh pasturage. The skin and complexion of the Mongols is by nature tolerably fair; at least this is the case with all young children: but the custom of the common people, whose children of the male sex run about stark naked, in the sun and in the smoke of their tents, and among whom likewise the men generally sleep in summer with no other covering than their under

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garment,

garment, occasions their ordinary colour to be a sallow brown, The women on the contrary are very white under their clothes, and among people of quality you meet with faces of a delicately fair complexion, still further heightened by the blackness of the hair; and which in these respects, as well as in the features themselves, bear a strong resemblance to the figures in Chinese paintings.

All the Mongols lead a roving life, and dwell in moveable felttents, commonly called Jurts or Kibitkas (in Mongol Gär). They are circular and of different dimensions, and rest upon lattice-work about four feet high, which is held together by borders above and below, but may easily be taken to pieces. The skeleton of the ha-. bitation, which stands upon this frame, is composed of poles which meet at top. These are covered with thick gray or white felt, which, among the more opulent people, are worked at the borders with cords, of plaited hair. They are tied round with hair-ropes, which keep them fast, and only one opening is left for an entrance, which is closed externally with a felt-curtain."

The Calmucks are a tribe of the Oirät or Dorbon Oirät, that is, of the four confederates, called by the Mongols Oelöt. According to an ancient tradition current among them, the greatest and most powerful part of the Oelöt, having migrated westward and proceeded as far as Asia Minor, afterwards settled about the Caucasus. On this the rest of the Oelöt, who remained in Great Tartary, received from their Tartar neighbours the name of Ckálimack, which signifies those who staid behind, from the verb ckálmack to stay behind, which is still used in modern Turkey, and from this appellation the Calmuck of the Europeans is derived."

After a very circumstantial account of the manners, religion, and history of the Mongol tribes, M. Klaproth proceeds to the more immediate object of his journey, and enters on the country adjoining the Caucasian mountains. The result of his inquiries respecting the Polowzians is that they were a tribe of Tartars, called Skabdscha Tartars, governed by Tcherkessian princes: but he admits that this conclusion is subject to the uncertainty generally attendant on the assumptions which regard so dark a period of history. While he was travelling in this region, he passed through the country inhabited by the descendants of the Nogays, or Ckuban Tartars; who have, during the present age, been severely chastised by the Russian government, and obliged to relinquish their predatory mode of life:

They are hospitable and sociable, and all profess the Mohammedan religion. It is remarkable, that we yet find among them that infirmity of which Herodotus, in treating of the Scythians, makes mention in these words: "When the Scythians were masters of Asia, they went thence towards Egypt; but when they had reached Syria and Palestine, Psametichus King of Egypt went to meet them," and by presents and entreaties prevailed on them not to advance; they returned, therefore, by way of Askalon into Syria, and left the

country without doing any further mischief, excepting that some who remained behind plundered the temple of Urania. This temple, from all accounts that I have been able to collect, was the most ancient which this goddess ever had, and that in Cyprus owes its origin to it, according to the admission of the Cyprians themselves: the temple of Cythera was likewise erected by Phoenicians, natives of Syria. The goddess hereupon sent a feminine disease among those Scythians who had plundered her temple at Askalon, and this punishment was perpetuated for ever among their posterity. The Scythians say that this disease was a chastisement for the sacrilege; and strangers who visit the country of the Scythians witness it in the state of those who are called by those people Enaræans."

Hippocrates, in his Treatise on Air and Vapour, in which he gives many particulars concerning the Scythians, also speaks of these Enaræans. "There are likewise among the Scythians," says he, persons who come into the world as eunuchs, and do all the work of women; they are called Enaraans or womanish. The people of their country consider this defect as a visitation of the gods, and pay respect to these Enaræans in order to divert a similar misfortune from themselves. For my part, I believe that this evil is no more sent by the Deity than any thing else we see; for I think that every effect has its cause, and that nothing can happen without one."- Reineggs is the first modern who found this kind of infirmity among the Nogays, only with this difference, that they are not born with it, but that it arises from incurable debility after diseases, or from increasing age. The skin then grows wrinkled, the scanty beard falls off, and the man assumes a completely feminine appearance. In this state he is obliged to shun the company of men, and to associate with women, whom he perfectly resembles.'

The recent opening of the Continent has afforded, to the travelling part of our countrymen, a sight of places which exhibit a curious contrast to the cleanliness and comfort of Old England: but the meanest towns of France or Germany are intitled to the epithet of magnificent in comparison with the cities of the interior of Russia. Charkow, a town to the south of Moscow, the seat of an university and of a provincial government, is so encumbered with mud and filth, that a carriage drawn by two strong horses often sticks fast in the streets. It would not be possible,' says M. Klaproth, to walk through the dirt on stilts; but, fortunately, the weather was dry during part of my stay, and the mud became so fixed and compact that we could walk over it without sinking.' He found it necessary, however, to follow the established practice of wearing very wide fur-boots, fastened over the knee with straps and buckles. The etiquette is to take off these legcovers when entering a house: but it may happen, in this receptacle of wet and filth, as was the case with M. Klaproth, that the boot will stick so fast in the mud as to oblige the weares

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