referable to two grand varieties of the human species, the Finns, Lapps, and Samoiedes of the north, with the Tartars, Turkoman, and Kalmuck tribes, in the east and south-east, belonging to the Mongolian division, the remainder to the Caucasian. Of this last section, the Muscovites or Russians proper, vastly preponderating, seated chiefly in the centre, though everywhere diffused, and the Poles in the west, form the principal portion of the great European Sclavonic family; the Esthonians, Lettons, and Kures, along the Baltic, are supposed to be mixed Finnian and Sclavonian; and the Germans, scattered through the Baltic provinces, and planted in colonies in the south, with the Swedes of Finland, are different branches of the Teutonic stock. Besides these, a considerable number of Jews inhabit Poland and West Russia.-The instructed class constitutes an insignificant portion of the population; and while many tribes are in a barbarous or semi-civilized condition, the mass of the people are grossly ignorant, incapable of appreciating the advantages of constitutional freedom, were they attainable, and therefore reconciled to the despotism under which they live.-Absolute government is not in danger in Russia from the middle and lower orders, and has only hitherto encountered checks from the nobles. The present imperial family descends in the female line from Peter the Great. Nicholas 1. ascended the throne, 1825. The familiar title of Czar, is an abbreviated form of Cæsar. The official title of Samoderjetz, used in state documents, signifies autocrat, (sole ruler,) and indicates the nature of the sovereign authority.

294. The Muscovites belong to the dominant Greek church, which embraces many proselytes among the other races; the Poles are largely Roman Catholics; the Esthonians, Lettons, Kures, Germans, Swedes, Finns, and Lapps, are mostly Lutheran, or Moravian Protestants; the Kalmuck hordes are Lama worshippers; the Tartars and Turkoman tribes are Mohammedans; and various forms of idolatry prevail among the Samoiedes, particularly the worship of imaginary good and evil powers. About sixsevenths of the population are members of the national church, the remaining one-seventh comprising all the different sects, are distributed as follows, according to the report of the minister of the interior for 1846 :

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The nominally Christian Russo-Greek church has little of Christianity in connection with it beyond the name. monies, performed with great splendour in the capitals, but conducted with revolting levity in the provinces, supersede the exhibition of those truths of the Bible upon which the salvation and happiness of mankind depend; while the invocation of saints, trust in the virgin, the veneration of relics, fasts, and endless genuflexions, take the place of that faith in Christ, which sanctifies the heart and regulates the life in harmony with the will of God. Hence a strict observance of the religious ritual, and great profligacy of manners, are perfectly compatible, and all but universal. There are various points in which the eastern, or Greek, differs from the western or Roman Catholic communion, but both are about equally steeped in corruption and error; though in the case of the legends and marvels sanctioned by the Greek church, intentional imposture or wilful blindness can hardly be suspected, owing to the deplorable ignorance and superstition of priests and people. Russia has a carnival season, following Lent instead of preceding it, as in Italy. On the eve of Easter Sunday, a deathlike silence reigns in the streets of Moscow, till on a sudden, at midnight, the thunder of the great cannon at the Kremlin, and the bells of 250 churches, give the signal. The streets and church towers are then all illuminated, and with mutual felicitations of "Christ is risen," the people abandon themselves to gluttony and drink. A similar scene occurs throughout the land, in which the clergy are prominent actors, even outstripping their flocks in vicious indulgence; and every man's conscience is quite at ease, having previously kept the commandment of the church, to fast and make lenten fare. The picture is sad, but not in the

slightest degree overdrawn, and it is rendered still more mournful by the fact, that the present government of the country steadily contemplates an ecclesiastical unity to be realized by as general an incorporation as possible of Russian subjects in the dominant communion. Hence while the Protestant portions of the population are tolerated, their missionary efforts are either directly prohibited or practically repressed, even among the still heathen tribes, the Russian clergy being supported in an intolerant claim upon the adhesion of all who renounce their ancestral faith. But notwithstanding formidable difficulties, there are faithful men in the Baltic provinces, and in the south German colonies, by whom God is working, and illustrating the truth, that as without his blessing the fairest position is powerless for good, so with it, the most unpropitious circumstances cannot preclude good from being effected.

Moscow, the old metropolis, is on the river Moskva, near the centre of the country, and in its most densely-peopled district, 390 miles s.E. of Petersburg. It is remarkable for its oriental appearance and vicissitudes, having been seven times desolated by fire previous to the last conflagration at the time of the French invasion, which, though figuring conspicuously in western annals, was unimportant in comparison with the former catastrophes. On the towers of the surviving stone churches, the Mohammedan crescent still rises above the cross, a monument of earlier revolutions. The Kremlin, or "fort," a most singular building, is a confused assemblage of military works, churches and monasteries, with the ancient palace of the Czars. It contains the great bell, twenty-one feet high, twenty-two feet in diameter where widest, and nearly two feet thick at the lower edge, cast in the reign of the empress Anne, about 1730; it is now cracked and useless. The suburban seats of the nobles bear the title of Podmoskuvyi, or Moscow appurtenances, because the inhabitants for twenty-five miles around the city are considered as belonging to it.-Population 350,000. Warsaw, the former capital of the kingdom of Poland, on the Vistula, contains the largest Jewish population of any city in Europe.-Population 150,000. Odessa, on the Black Sea, between the rivers Dniester and Bug, founded by Catherine II. in 1792, is the third commercial port of the empire, and one of the greatest in Europe for the export of wheat.-Population 70,000.

Riga, near the mouth of the southern Dwina, is the second commercial port, ranking after the capital in respect of foreign trade. German is here exclusively spoken by the educated classes.-Population 70,000.

Wilna, on a tributary of the Niemen, the ancient capital of Lithuania, is largely inhabited by the Polish Jews.-Population 58,000.

Kasan, near the Volga, formerly the capital of an independent Tartar kingdom, has a considerable number of Tartar inhabitants. It is the seat of a University, and a chief depôt of the produce of Siberia.-Population 56,000,

Kieff, on the right bank of the Dnieper, a place of great trade, and an important military post, is celebrated in history as the first spot on which Christianity was planted among the barbarous hordes then wandering over Russia. A suspension bridge across the river is being constructed by an English engineer, which will be the largest in Europe, the length being fully half a mile. The whole of the iron, about 3,300 tons, was wrought in England, with all the machinery requisite. It was conveyed to Odessa in fifteen vessels, and from thence to Kieff over the Steppes in wagons drawn by oxen.-Population 50,000.

Astrakhan, near the mouth of the Volga, is the chief entrepôt of Russian trade with Persia, Turkestan, and India. The town contains 146 streets, 46 squares, and 8 market-places, all unpaved and as sandy as the Steppes: 11 wooden and

9 earthen bridges; 34 churches of stone, and 3 of wood; 2 mosques of stone, and 13 of wood; 288 houses of stone, and 3,595 of wood.-Population 45,000.

Tula, south of Moscow, is the Birmingham of Russia, manufacturing fire-arms, cannon, cutlery, and hardware in general.-Population 40,000.

Sebastopol, in the Crimea, is the ordinary station of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.-Population 30,000.

Archangel, near the outfall of the northern Dwina into the White Sea, had commercial relations with England before any other Russian port. Cronstadt, on an island, near the extremity of the Gulf of Finland, is the port of Petersburg, and the station of the Russian navy in the Baltic. Nishnei Novgorod, on the Volga, nearly due east of Moscow, is annually one of the most remarkable places in the world, owing to its great fair. This is held from July 1, to September 1 (old style), and attracts an average assemblage of 600,000 persons, traders from different European and Asiatic countries, who exchange the produce of the east-tea, silks, and shawls-for the manufactures of the west. Besides an immense number of temporary booths, the permanent stone-market consists of 2,522 store-rooms, connected with as many chambers for the owners of goods to live in, a noble edifice rising in the centre for the official superintendents of the fair, the groundfloor of which becomes a post-office where Bokharian and Armenian merchants receive their letters from far distant Asiatic correspondents. The declared official value of the goods sold, is stated to be £5,000,000, the real value £10,000,000. Kherson, near the mouth of the Dnieper, is distinguished by the grave of Howard the philanthropist, four miles distant. Kola, in lat. 68° 30′ N., 630 miles from Petersburg, is the most northerly town of Russia in Europe, not far from the shore of the Arctic Ocean, containing about 1,200 inhabitants.

The principal exports of Russia are wheat, flax, hemp, timber, tallow, and furs. An imperial ukase issued in 1845 came into operation Jan. 1, 1850, requiring every Jew in the empire to abandon the Jewish costume, and adopt that of the Russians or French, under pain of an annual fine.

TURKEY IN EUROPE.

295. European Turkey occupies the greater part of the eastern peninsula of southern Europe, from the Austrian and Russian territories on the north, to the frontiers of Greece on the south. The boundary on the west is formed by Austrian Dalmatia and the Adriatic Sea; on the east by the Black Sea, Sea of Marmora, and the north portion of the Greek Archipelago, with their connecting straits. The country extends between the extreme northern and southern points, about 650 miles; between the eastern and western 700 miles; the included area amounting to nearly 180,000 square miles. Its western coast-line stretches from the castle of St. Stephen, below Cattaro, in Dalmatia, to the sandy promontory of La Punta, at the south entrance of the Gulf of Arta, of celebrity as the site of the naval battle of Actium between Augustus and Marc Antony, which secured to the former the dominion of the Roman world. The eastern coast-line extends from the Gulf of Volo to the mouth of the Danube, and makes a very close approach to the shores of Asia, at the famous strait of the Dardanelles (Hellespont), and at the channel of Constantinople (Thra

cian Bosphorus), both of which narrow to less than a mile in breadth. The Dardanelles are so called from the four old castles which fortify the shores,-two on the European and two on the Asiatic side, at the north and south entrances of the strait. The Sea of Marmora derives its name from the island of Marmora situated in it, famous for its marble. The Black Sea is supposed to have obtained its title from the fears of inexpert navigators, though the navigation is very easy, to which its classical name refers, the word Euxine signifying hospitable. Candia, forming the southern border of the Archipelago, is the largest island of European Turkey, and one of the largest in the Mediterranean, anciently known under the name of Crete, whose inhabitants are mentioned in the New Testament as excessively dissolute. It formerly belonged to the Venetians, who kept possession of it upwards of four centuries, till in September, 1669, after a siege of twenty years, the longest in modern history, the capital surrendered to the Turks. A few other islands are retained in the north of the Archipelago, of small extent, among which Samothraki (Samothrace), possesses interest, being mentioned in sacred history as the spot where the Apostle Paul touched on his way from Asia Minor to Philippi.

296. Mountains occupy a very large proportion of the surface of Turkey, which connect themselves on the northwest with the Dinaric Alps, and thus unite with the great Alpine system of Europe. From a lofty and rugged central region several chains diverge in various directions. The Balkan range (Hamus) extends eastwards to the Black Sea, bearing the name of Emineh Dagh among the Turks, meaning the "mountains which serve for a defence," because forming a natural rampart in the way of invaders from the north. Dagh or Tagh, a term of frequent occurrence in the geography of the country, signifies a mountain. The Rilo Dagh and Despoto Dagh (Rhodope), with loftier heights, run south-eastward into Roumelia; and Pindus, southwards into Greece, of which the well-known classical mountains are offsets overlooking the Gulf of Saloniki (Thessalonica), Pelion rising 5,310 feet, Ossa 6,407, and Olympus 9,754. On the north-east, the surface subsides into a vast plain, flat and marshy, extending along both banks of the Danube, and including the whole of Wallachia