Lancasterian system. The children seemed to have made considerable proficiency in the first rudiments; the schools however are yet in their infancy, though nearly one thousand boys attend. It was indeed gratifying to a patriotic heart, to see the institutions of old England adopted in the heart of Siberia,-an adoption equally honourable to us, and creditable to Alexander.

"Tobolsk is far from being a dull place; yet, even in summer, the situation is very cold and bleak, being in the latitude of near 59°, and the thermometer, during winter, at times, falling as low as 40° and 42° of Reaumur; while, on the other hand, it is not always free from the opposite unpleasantness of extreme heat.

"The embroidery of muslins is brought to considerable perfection at Tobolsk, introduced originally by the daughters of exiled officers, who had felt the deprivation of their former means of subsistence; and it is now the prevailing fashion among the ladies."

After a pleasant residence at Tobolsk, he proceeded to Omsk; and, being now among the Tartars, he introduces the following description of their habits and manners:

"I descended the mountain by a steep and dangerous road, then ferried over the Irtish, passing through a large Tartar village situated in a fine pasture, with some rye corn, and reached the second station on the lofty bank of the Irtish. I found the cottages neat and clean, and the inhabitants comfortable, hospitable, and contented, without hope or expectation of reward for their hospitality to me. Thence to Berezofska, the country appears more cultivated and pleasing, with a good deal of fine wood in the valleys. Thence to the Tartar village of Ingeary, on the banks of the Vagay, when I entered a considerable track of their lands, near seventy miles in extent, but without a single Russian inhabitant. These Tartars are of the Bashkire race, I could not help observing the perfect cleanliness of their houses, the civility of the people, and the good economy of their lands. I slept most contentedly in these dwellings; feeding upon milk and cakes.

"The dress of the Tartar women is light, if not neat; being merely a plain white shift, with a sash round the waist to support the bosom; besides this they have not a vestige of apparel, except the handkerchief on the head. The young girls had the hair plaited and hanging down like the Biscay girls, or brought up under the left arm, and fastened to the fore part of the shift by a riband. Such is the simple summer dress: the winter, or gala one, is, however, more tawdry. Their features appear delicate, but their limbs are strong, and their complexion very dark.

"At Kamenski I quitted the great Siberian road, not far from Tara, passing several neat Tartar villages, whose white plastered chimneys and ovens reminded me a little of those in my own country. The furniture consists of a few earthenware utensils, and a set of tea-things: one half of the room is elevated above the other about fourteen inches, and that half serves them alike for sitting, sleeping, and store-room. They are particular in having clean bedding, and many pillows; the latter of which are always presented to a stranger to raise and soften his seat, as they have neither chairs nor stools. A Tartar dwelling has always, if possible, attached to it the convenience of a vegetable garden. The women, I observed, never presume to eat or drink till their better or worse half has finished, and then but seldom while in their presence.

"The country is open, and laboriously cultivated, and the neighbourhood populous. Much fine wood and some fishless lakes are to be seen. I overtook a party of unfortunates exiled for misdemeanors, and compelled to live in this district, which is hence the general rendezvous of pick-pockets, &c.

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Through a succession of happy villages I reached Tukalinsk, over an uninteresting level of pasture land. The wretched external appearance of the cottages is more than counterbalanced by the neatness within; and if half a dozen healthy and beautiful children be any indication of content, then are the inhabitants of this district most happy. The price of bread is one shilling, and of meat three, for forty pounds. The road is, in general, very good."

He describes the uninteresting level of Siberia, by its contrast to the country which succeed it on the borders of the Chinese Empire; and his account of Boukhtarma is particularly interesting, not only from its picturesque position, but as a frontier town of Russian Siberia :

"I reached Uvarova, whence I again began to enjoy my travels; for that unproductive and almost endless flat which extends from Ubinsk to Tobolsk and the Frozen

Sea, and from the Ural chain far eastward of Tomsk, is now succeeded by a beautiful variety of hilly country, much cultivation, and some forest spots. Many bold and picturesque bluffs run into the river, rushing as it were through the valleys, and forming strong eddies as they pass the islands with which the river is interspersed. I reached Ustkamenogorsk in the early part of the second evening, having crossed a sort of broken chain of hills. The scenery in general was, however, very beautiful and wild; to the right, one of the peaks lifts its snow-clad head, and is visible at the distance of one hundred miles. Ustkamenogorsk is placed in a vast level valley, bounded east and west by lofty distant mountains, and the whole forms a rich and striking panorama. The fortress is like others hereabouts,-a bare mud-wall, yet keeps a commandant and three hundred soldiers in snug but useless quarters, occupied in cutting hay and plundering the poor peasantry.

"Boukhtarma stands on the right bank of the Irtish, in one of the most romantic spots in the universe. It is environed by the noblest mountains, which yet appear to have no other connexion with each other than that of standing together on the same globe : they are in fact so many beautiful hills placed on a perfectly level plane, so that a traveller may go round them without an ascent or descent of ten perpendicular feet. From this may be imagined the romantic beauty of the valleys which intervene not a tree, nor a shrub, nor a habitation is to be seen, save only in the fortress ;-nothing but grass. The valley is one continued carpet of herbage, forming, in contrast with the sterile mountains, a picturesque solitude, undisturbed, except during the night, by the barking of the wolves and other wild animals.

:

"The fortress, though it maintains a commandant, with a garrison of three hundred men, is a miserable place, the worst along the whole frontier line; nor is the village better. The Kirgeese commit great havoc among the cattle, stealing great numbers, of which not more than one half are, in any circumstances, restored. A considerable trade might be established at this point between the Russian and Chinese empires, but for the obstinacy, ignorance, and policy, of the latter nation, who will not change the route by which their forefathers travelled. The advantage of the alteration would be sufficiently apparent from the mere fact of the lesser distance from Pekin to Boukhtarma.

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Having procured a guide, I left Boukhtarma for the line of demarcation on the Chinese and Russian frontiers. I first crossed the stream which gives name to the fortress, and then, over a good path, entered upon a most romantic country, near the village of Voronia. It is impossible, without a poetical imagination, to conceive the beauties of such a country; the magnificent and bold sterile precipices which are seen rising from the great level pasture base, are, I should think, quite unparalleled and the noble Irtish forcing its way among the numerous islands near this part of the river, adds to the majesty of the scene. At the village, among other similar luxuries, I was treated with wild currants, melons, cassia, "milk and honey." Surely this is the natural place for the habitation of man.

"The night was so beautiful, the moon just ascending above the hills, that in spite of a good supper, which was ready and inviting my attack, I resumed my journey on horseback, in company with the landlord, to Malaya-Narymka, the last Russian spot on the frontier. An officer and a few men placed here, are all that are left to mark the boundaries of two such mighty empires as Russia and China. I forded the little stream which forms the actual limit, and seating myself on a stone on the left bank, was soon lost in a reverie. It was aboat midnight; the moon, apparently full, near her meridian, and seemed to encourage a pensive inclination. What can surpass that scene I know not. Some of the loftiest granite mountains spreading in various directions, enclosing some of the most luxuriant valleys in the world; yet all deserted!all this fair and fertile tract abandoned to wild beasts, merely to constitute a neutral territory!'

כן

was

It seems, the Russian government, with a view to correct abuses of administration in the distant provinces of Siberia, lately sent into them an enlightened statesman of the name of Speranski; and, at Barnaouli, Captain Cochrane encounted this gentleman, and gives of him the following interesting account:

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Upon my arrival, I found great preparations making to receive his Excellency Mr. Speranski, the Governor-general, who was making the circuit of the government to inquire into all abuses, being possessed with unlimited powers. His Excellency arrived in the course of the second day, and was received with the respect due to his

rank, integrity, and virtues. Two sumptuous dinners were given by the chief of the district, the gardens were illuminated, balls were assembled, and every one was happy. I of course shone a conspicuous object-indeed I was honoured with the friendship and confidence of both those gentlemen. Of General Speranski I will only say, that I have never seen more true greatness of soul, or goodness of heart. There is in him a certain condescension and affability, and at the same time a certain air of nobility, that strikes all who approach him with awe and respect. Of his personal attentions to me, I shall ever feel proud and grateful. He had at first taken me for a Raskolnick, from my long beard, and longer golden locks: notwithstanding I wore at the same time a long swaddling grey nankeen coat, and a silken sash round my waist, but indeed so great a buck had I become of late, that I hardly knew myself. As to my shoes, they were better than new, although seven years had elapsed from the time that Baron Bode had first used them."

M. Speranski, with the same discrimination which qualified him to correct public abuses, fixed on Capt. Cochrane as a suitable person to join in the expedition of discovery, then fitting out on the Kolyma river, to determine the position and extent of North-east Cape, called Shelatskoi Noss. Accordingly, he furnished him with a commission for this purpose, with instructions to proceed to Nishney Kolymsk, where the expedition was preparing under Baron Wrangel. Barnaoula, it should be observed, is in lat. 53. E. long. 84. and Nishney Kolymsk in lat. 68. E. long. 164; consequently, in this commission, M. Speranski appears to have afforded complete indulgence to the travelling propensities of our author. He now proceeded through Tomsk to Irkutsk, thence to Yakutsk, and finally to Nishney Kolymsk, generally on foot, sometimes in sledges, and occasionally by the navigation of rivers. In this route of between 3 and 4000 miles, it is impossible to detail his adventures; therefore, for particulars of these, we must refer the reader to the author's highly interesting volume. Of Irkutsk, he speaks in the following terms :

"Fifteen thousand inhabitants, including three thousand of the military, are said to compose the population. Irkutsk indeed scarcely deserves the name of city, except for its public buildings, which are good; yet, though I confess it is upon the whole a fine town. The houses are for the greater part of wood, though many are of brick, and constructed on a superior style of architecture.

"I visited a military school, like the others upon the Lancasterian system, with seven hundred boys."

Of Russian hospitality, as displayed after leaving Irkutsk, the following passage is a sample:

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Proceeding day and night in my open canoe, I soon reached Kirenga. The weather was cold, the scenery, though ever changing, was always mountainous, numerous islands were scattered about the river, whose stream ran at about one and a half or two knots per hour; I generally made one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles during each day's progress, and, wherever I went, fared well from the hospitality of the Russian colonists, as well as from that of my friends at Irkutsk, who had provided me, according to the Russian proverb, with plenty of bread and salt. This simple sounding provision included also some fine partridges, a hare, a large piece of roast beef, and a quantity of meat pies; not omitting wine and rum.'

Of Yakutsk, he speaks in the following terms:

"Yakutsk, although a considerable place of trade, and a great pass for the American Company, is ill built, and more scattered even than Irkutsk, in the most exposed of all bleak situations on the left bank of the Lena, which is in summer four miles, and winter two miles and a half wide, appearing, as it really is, one of the finest streams in the world, running a course of more than four thousand miles from its source, near Irkutsk, to the Frozen Sea, which it enters by several mouths. The stream is by no means a rapid one, but rather may be called lazy, as its name appears to import. There are seven thousand inhabitants in the city, of whom the greater part are Russians, and the rest Yakuti. Half a dozen churches, the remains of an old fortress, a monas

tery, and some tolerable buildings, give it some decency of appearance, yet, I could not help thinking it one of the most dreary looking places I had seen."

We are obliged to pass over his hair-breadth escapes between Yakutsk and Nishney Kolymsk, and conclude this part of his journey with the following extract:

"We reached fifty-five miles with the same dogs, and put up for the night at a Yukagir hut. Resumed next morning with increased cold, though calm weather, and reached Nishney Kolymsk at noon, amid 42 of frost, according to many spirit thermometers of Baron Wrangel's, on the 31st day of December, 1820, after a most tedious, laborious, and to me perilous journey of sixty-one days, twenty of which were passed in the snow, without even the comfort of a blanket-a great oversight, I will not call it a fault, of my worthy friend Mr. Minitsky: nor had I even a second coat, or parka, nor even a second pair of boots, and less clothing than even the guides and attendants of the poorest class. I could not therefore but feel grateful for my safe arrival at such a season of the year, in such intense cold, and with only the upper part of my nose between the eyes at all injured. Had I not received the knee preservers, I never should have arrived safe, unless by walking the whole distance; for when once the knees are frost-bitten in a serious manner, adieu alike to them and life.

"I met, at Nishney Kolymsk, the Baron Wrangel, and his companion Mr. Matiushkin, a midshipman. It was the last day of the old year, and in the present enjoyment of a moderate meal, a hearty welcome, and excellent friends, I soon forgot the past, and felt little concern for the future. Quarters were appropriated to me in the Baron's own house; and with him, on the shores of the Frozen Sea, I enjoyed health and every comfort I could desire."

He accordingly proceeded to the country of the Tchuktchi, in company with some merchants. These people inhabit the tract which forms the north-eastern corner of Asia; but, after some negociation, the chiefs refused to admit and conduct him through their country, except for a present of 5000 pounds weight of tobacco, and he was in consequence obliged to return to Kolymsk. His account, however, of the Tchuktchi race forms one of the most interesting portions of his work; and the facts are new to Geography.

Capt. Cochrane now proceeded by Omekon to Okotsk, and in his route experienced many perils. From Okotsk he proceeded across the sea of that name to St. Peter and St. Paul, in Kamtchatka, where it was his happy fortune to centre his hitherto rambling affections in an amiable Kamtchatdale lady. He, however, made a tour of pleasure through that peninsula in the winter of 1821; and, returning to St. Peter and St. Paul, was, on the 8th of January 1822, united to his fair one, being, as he remarks, the first Englishman that ever married a Kamtchatdale; and as the lady would be the first Kamtchatdale that ever visited Britain, the captain sailed in July 1822 for Okotsk, and actually travelled with his bride from that post across Siberia to Petersburg, encountering, as might be expected, numerous adventures on the route.

On repassing the Ural Mountains, he introduces the following observations as a summary of his experience:

"At break of day I was on the highest peak of the Ural mountain pass, and could not help stopping to take a last view of Asia, the forced residence of many dear and valued friends, as also the abode of others whom I much esteem. Though it is, generally speaking, the land of the exile, it is rather the land of the unfortunate than of the criminal. It is the want of education, which begetting a looseness of morals, plunges these unfortunates into error. The thinness of population in Siberia, is a ready reason to account for the facility with which a person is exiled. Of real criminals there are not so many as is imagined, as by the report of Nertchinsk it appears, that but two thousand five hundred criminals are employed in the mines. It is not

every man who is sent to Botany Bay that ought to be termed a criminal; nor is every one who is exiled to Siberia. It may be safely said that all the most hardened criminals who are banished for life, are at Nertchinsk and Okotsk; at least there are very few exceptions, and I believe their whole number does not exceed three thousand, while the number of exiles sent for a limited period, annually amount to at least one half that number. As to the education and moral habits of the natives of Siberia, they are certainly equal, if not superior in these respects, to that of the European Russians. They have not the same incitement, nor the same means of committing crimes. The whole population does not exceed two millions and a half, about one half of which are aborigines, scattered over a tract of country which gives to each person three square miles. Provisions and clothing are cheap, taxes are not known, the climate is healthy -and what can man more desire? I looked again to the East, and bade adieu, thankful for the many marks of esteem and kindness I had received from the hands of its hospitable people.

"Descending the western branch of the Ural Mountains, I soon found myself again in Europe: the land of malt, the fire-side home, again had charms for the traveller. The sensations I experienced upon quitting the most favoured quarter of the globe, were nothing when compared to the present. Then I thought I was going only to the abode of misery, vice, and cruelty, while now I knew I had come from that of humanity, hospitality, and kindness. I looked back to the hills, which are, as it were, the barrier between virtue and vice, but felt, in spite of it, a desire to return and end my days. And so strong is still that desire, that I should not hesitate to bid adieu to politics, war, and other refined pursuits, to enjoy, in Siberia, those comforts which may be had without fear of foreign or domestic disturbance.

"In the evening of my entry into Europe, I reached the village of Bissertskaya Krepost, situate on the Bissert stream. The road was bad, and over a hilly country, nor was my dissatisfaction at all allayed by the conduct of the Permians. Inhospitality, incivility, and general distrust every where prevailed, and influenced the conduct of the inhabitants; even the last copeck is insisted upon in payment for the horses, before they are permitted to commence the journey; a circumstance which, in many cases, occasions much inconvenience and loss of time. In Siberia, the traveller may pay forward or backward three or four stations, and every sort of accommodation is given."

In his conclusion, he modestly tells us that there is so little of interest in Siberia, and so little to be seen, that it is hardly possible to form an interesting work; Siberia being, in fact, one immense wilderness, whose inhabitants are so scattered, that 5 or 600 miles are passed by the traveller without seeing an individual, or any works of man; while the manners, customs, and dress, of most of the inhabitants are the same. This may be the fact with reference to the country, but it is not so in regard to the author's book. He is a man of genius, and, like a man of genius, he has conferred great interest on a barren subject; or rather, like an eminent sculptor, he has, from a shapeless block of marble, produced a representation of the most pleasing and instructive character. What the materials may have wanted in their intrinsic worth, they have acquired by their association with our adventurous traveller.

GEOGRAPHY.

An Account of the Discoveries of the Portugueze in the Interior of Angola and Mozambique. By T. E. Bowditch, Esq.-8vo. pp. 186. Booth. THE recent death of the enterprising traveller, whose name accompanies this work, will increase its appreciation; while it renews our regret that the valuable geographical elucidation it supplies, was his parting bequest. Some fatality appears to attend the prosecution of research in Africa. Buckhardt and Belzoni, (par nobile fratrum,) Parke, and