very small body. Nearly all the inhabitants of the southwest, or those whose geographical position may be defined generally as within a line running from the delta of the Ganges, along the Himalaya to the source of the Oxus river, and from thence to the Caspian and Black Seas, belong by physical conformation to the Caucasian or symmetric variety of mankind. But the nations included in this district are members of two widely-distinct linguistic families. The Hindoo, Afghan, Persic, Kurdish, Armenian, and Georgian languages are of the class termed Indo-European or Japetic, which highly develop a system of inflections; while the Syriac, Syro-Chaldaic, and Arabic are of a different stock, the Syro-Arabian or Semitic, in which the distinguishing feature of the preceding group is very imperfectly indicated. Beyond the geographical region defined, or through the greater part of Asia, a general correspondence prevails to the physical configuration of the Mongolian variety of the human race, and the Malayan sub-variety. Here likewise there are two great linguistic families, the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, which are monosyllabic and uninflected languages, the very opposite of the Indo-European; and the tongues of the numerous semi-barbarous tribes scattered from the centre to the northern ocean, and from the Urals to the Pacific, which are referable to a common stock, sometimes called the Ugro-Tartarian, to which the Finnish dialects of northern Europe are related.

307. A very mournful picture is unfolded by the religious statistics of this division of the globe. There are perhaps not less than 320,000,000 Buddhists, 120,000,000 Brahminists; 60,000,000 Mohammedans; various forms of heathenism in the north, with Judaism and Christianity, dividing a comparative remnant between them. To alter these figures, so as to make the last-mentioned profession numerically predominant, seems an extravagant expectation, according to worldly calculations; but not more apparently hopeless is it, considering the augmentation of facilities, than the work to which a few poor and uneducated disciples of Christ once addressed themselves, obeying his command and relying on his promise, which proved successful, ending in the overthrow of a mythology sustained by the associations of antiquity, the embellishments of art, the self-interest of a priesthood, and the power of an empire, and completely revo

lutionized the face of the then known world. Asia has peculiar claims to attention as the nursery of the human race, as the parent of the nations occupying the habitable parts of the earth, but more especially as the theatre of those transactions which prepared the way for the advent of the Messiah, and the scene of his birth, life, labours and sufferings, resurrection and ascension; by confiding in whose merits the inhabitants of a fallen world may now obtain mercy, and the certain hope of everlasting bliss.

The political powers of the first rank as to amount of influence and extent of territory, are China, Russia, and Great Britain: the states of the second rank are Turkey, Persia, Burmah, Siam, and Japan; next to which are Cochin China, Muscat, Bokhara, and the small Khanats of no political weight.

RUSSIA IN ASIA.

308. Asiatic Russia consists of two separate portions, the vast tract of Siberia in the north, and a comparatively small district between the Caucasus and Persia, in the southwest. Siberia skirts in a broad belt the entire shore of the Polar Ocean, from the borders of Europe to the coast of the Pacific. The distance between the extreme western and eastern points, is nearly 4,000 miles; between the furthest north and the Chinese frontier on the south, 1,900 miles; the included area amounting to 5,300,000 square miles. The country is the most extensive of the Asian lowlands, with very dreary and monotonous features, and a scanty amount of cultivable soil. It abounds with immense marshes and pools; contains the large and remarkable lake Baikal, in the south; and is traversed by enormous river systems, that of the Obi, with its great tributary, the Irtish, in the west; the Yenesei, of which the Angara is the leading branch, in the centre; and the Lena, with its affluent, the Aldan, in the east. These rivers through great part of the year flow under masses of ice to the Arctic Ocean. Dense forests of pine, larch, and birch, cover extensive tracts in the southern districts. A few bushes, willows, and saline plants alone appear for hundreds of miles in the steppes of the west. The northern regions have no woody vegetation, and are beyond the boundary of the cultivable world, presenting only mossy plains, called tundras, when the surface is bare of snow, of which it has been said, "they seem inaccessible to either joy or pain-the types of everlasting rest.”—

The climate is proverbial for its rigour. Such is the terrible cold, that in ordinary winters mercury remains a solid body for two months; a thick layer of hard frozen snow covers the ground for seven months; and even in summer it is found impossible to excavate graves for the dead without the aid of fire.

So low and flat is the surface, that Tobolsk, in the west, 550 miles from the Arctic Ocean, is only 128 feet above its level; and Yakutsk, in the east, rather more distant, only 287 feet. At Irkutsk, 1,400 miles distant, the elevation is still but 1,246 feet; and it is under 2,000 feet, in the basin of the upper Irtish, though 1,750 miles inland, or nearly 3,003 miles, following the course of the stream. Owing to the slight fall of the rivers, they readily overflow their banks, and spread out in wide inundations upon the melting of the snows.

The great Lake Baikal, in a mountain district, is comparable for beauty to the Swiss lake of Lucerne. It is the Holy Sea of the Asiatic Russians, who regard it with superstitious respect, owing to an apparently mysterious movement of its waters in calm weather, doubtless caused by earthquake shocks, which are common on its shores, and its dangerous navigation, arising from the excessive violence of the winds, their unsteadiness, and sudden shifting. It is a proverbial saying, that it is only upon the Baikal, in autumn, that a man learns to pray from his heart. In winter, the lake is covered with ice four feet thick, and is then traversed by sledges laden with tea and other produce from China. On the road from the Baikal to the Chinese frontier, at Tarakanova, the verst-post before the post office, gives the distance by the post-road from St. Petersburg at 5,963 versts, so that the Russians there are at nearly an equal distance from their own capital and the earth's centre.

At Yakutsk, which is very little further north than the Shetlands, the first night-frost announcing the approach of winter, and withering the leaves of the birch, usually occurs by the 17th of September. The frost becomes unabating day and night by the middle of October. The Lena is frozen up by November 2. About the beginning of April, the first symptoms of thaw in the shade take place. The last night-frost occurs about May 12. The Lena is free from ice by May 25. In the brief summer, the surface of the ground is thawed to the depth of about three feet, but from thence to the depth of 380 feet, the soil remains permanently frozen, as proved by sinking a shaft.

Snow hurricanes, sudden and violent, are frequent in all the northern parts, and are greatly dreaded, the dense fall obstructing completely the view of the traveller and obliterating his track.

309. Siberia is divided into two principal districts, western and eastern, each under the charge of a governorgeneral. The population is estimated at 2,000,000. About one-fourth are Europeans, chiefly of the dominant Russian race. The remaining three-fourths consist of the indigenous tribes, Ostiaks, Samoiedes, Kirghis, Buriates, Yenisseans, Tungusians, Kamschatdales, Tschukstchi, and others, Some of these are Mohammedans; others Buddhists; a few have entered the Greek church; but the majority are heathen, without any definite creed, though enslaved by wild or absurd superstitions, and regarding the elements of nature in the light of divinities. Protestant benevolence has sought to extend Christian truth to these benighted nomadic races; but the imperial will has offered an obstacle,

for by order of the government all proselytes must join the Greek communion.-Scantily as the country furnishes vegetable provision, compensation is afforded by a bountiful Providence in a remarkable abundance of animal food, the aliment needed in a cold climate. The rivers are stocked with fish of various kinds in prodigious swarms; millions of gallinaceous and aquatic birds visit the woods, streams, and shores; and the land animals include some of the most valuable species, the reindeer and the elk. It is also the richest metallic district in the Old World.

Tobolsk, on the Irtish, near its confluence with the Tobol, is the capital of western Siberia, built chiefly of wood, the government offices and public edifices being the principal exceptions. It is the depôt of Siberian and Chinese produce, lying on the great road from Europe to China.-Population 20.000. The passage of the Irtish here is regarded as the entrance into Siberia Proper. Hence, its ferry is the symbol of political death to the exile, but has a very different signification to the Russian officers, who gain a step in promotion on crossing the river in the service of the government, and residing three years beyond its boundary. Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, at a short distance from the Baikal, is in appearance, situation, and society, the most agreeable place in the north of Asia-Population 15,000. Kiahkta, about 200 miles to the south-east, is the nearest Russian town to the frontier of the Chinese empire; and the only place where the Chinese government allows its subjects to trade with Russia.

Yakutsk, on the Lena, is of importance as the centre of the fur-trade, and of an extensive traffic in ivory obtained from the walrus of the Arctic Ocean, and the fossil remains of mammoths and rhinoceroses found in abundance imbedded in the frozen soil of the shores. Tomsk, on the Tom, an affluent of the Obi; Omsk, at the junction of the Om with the Irtish; Beresov, on the Obi; and Krasnoyarsk, on the Yenesei, are places of considerable trade.

Okhotsk, on the coast of the sea of that name; and Petropaulovski (port of Peter and Paul), on the east coast of Kamschatka, are small ports of Siberia on the Pacific Ocean, trading with Russian America.

Ekaterinburg and Nevyansk, at the foot of the Urals, are centres of mining industry in connection with that range. A remarkable mountain in that neighbourhood, the Blagodat (Russ, blessing), with two rugged naked peaks, rising out of a plain, consists entirely of magnetic iron ore. The yearly total value of metal raised on the Urals is estimated at 35,490,000 rubles, or about £5,397,000. Barnaul and Kolyva, are mining towns of the Altai, with magnificent metallurgic and other establishments for the cutting and polishing of precious stones.

Siberia has the white and black bear, the reindeer, elk, wolf, and glutton, with the fur-bearing animals, the sable, ermine, beaver, polar and common fox, and a highly valuable species of dog. Intercommunication is maintained in winter by means of sledges drawn by the dogs or reindeer; in summer, chiefly by the rivers.

The minimum amount of the yearly fishery in the Obi is estimated by Erman at 26,000,000 of individuals, consisting of sturgeons, salmon, herrings, and other migratory fish.

The custom of tattooing, or of marking the skin by acupuncturation, still lingers among some of the native Siberian tribes.

Siberia takes its name from that of a small Tartar Khanat on the banks of the Obi and Irtish, which had a capital called Sibir.

310. The south-western portion of Asiatic Russia lies between the Caspian and Black Seas, and stretches southwards from the high ridge of the Caucasus to the frontiers of Asiatic Turkey and Persia. It comprehends the highly

fertile and beautiful country of Georgia, in the north and centre; Mingrelia and Imerita, the ancient Colchis, westward; Shirwan, eastward, containing the remarkable firefields of Bakou; and a portion of Armenia, in the south, including the majestic Mount Ararat. The principal river is the Kur (Cyrus), which forms a junction with the Aras (Araxes), and enters the Caspian. In the Caucasus, a long and hitherto successful struggle has been maintained by the mountaineers against the Russians, to preserve their independence.

Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, on the Kur, is the residence of the Russian Governor-general, celebrated for its hot baths.

Erivan, on a branch of the Aras, is the chief town of Russian Armenia, with a strong fortress.

The fire-fields of Bakou are about six miles from the town, which occupies the extremity of a peninsula of the Caspian. The soil is saturated with naphtha, yielding an inflammable gas in a state of ignition. Formerly, the Guebers, or fireworshippers of Persia, visited the spot as a place of pilgrimage, and a few still find their way to it.

Ararat, covered with perpetual snow, rises on the frontier of Russian, Turkish, and Persian Armenia, but is within the territory of the former power. It is still called by the natives the "Mountain of Noah," and the "Mountain of the Ark." Mr. Hamilton, a visitor in 1836, remarks:-"It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the first view of this stupendous mountain, rising in majestic and solitary grandeur, far above the surrounding hills and mountains. The morning was beautifully clear; the sun had just risen, and not a cloud, or particle of vapour, obscured its striking outline; and it was impossible to look on this mountain, so interestingly connected with the early history of the human race without mingled feelings of awe and wonder."

TURKEY IN ASIA.

311. The Asiatic portion of the Ottoman empire is a region invested with the highest sacred and historical interest, consisting of those countries which are eminently the lands of the Bible, associated with its great transactions, from the earliest patriarchal times to the foundation of Christianity, and which formed part of the three renowned monarchies of antiquity, the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Medo-Persian. It comprises Asia-Minor, with a number of contiguous islands; Syria, including Palestine; Turkish Armenia, Kourdistan, Algezira, and Irak Arabi. The Mediterranean, Archipelago, and Black Sea, form the boundary on the west and north; Asiatic Russia, Persia, and Arabia, on the east and south. The extreme northern and southern limits are separated by upwards of 800 miles; the eastern and western by upwards of 1,200; but diagonally, from the coast opposite Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, the dis