the principal ball-room; for I found an assembly as various in their appearance as characters in a masquerade. On the benches were squatted Turks, with their usual gravity and indifference, looking on with a soleni vacant stare, unmoved by shouts of joy or tumultuous songs, by the noise of the dancing, or the thundering of a pair of kettle-drums close to their ears. In another part were a party of Bucharians, with flat noses, high cheek-bones, and little eyes; their heads shaved, and a small conical embroidered cap on the crown of their sculls; in red morocco boots, long trowsers of blue cloth, with a girdle and a poignard. Besides these were Chinese merchants, Cossacks, and even Calmucs, all of whom appeared as spectators. In the middle of the room the Russian boors and tradesmen were dancing with prostitutes, while their own wives and daughters were walking about. A party of gipsies were performing the national dance, called Barina. It resembled our English hornhipe but never was displayed more ferocious licentiousness by voice and gesture. The male dancer expressed his savage joy in squeaks, contortions, and sudden convulsive spasms, that seemed to agitate his whole frame; standing sometimes still; then howling, whining tenderly, or trembling in all his limbs to the music, which was very animating. This dance, though very common in Russia, they confess to have derived from the gipsies; and it may therefore seem probable that our hornpipe was introduced by the same people. Other gipsies were telling fortunes, according to their universal practice, or begging for presents of oranges and ice. This extraordinary people, found in all parts of Europe, were originally one of the casts of India, driven out of their own territory, and distinguished among Indian tribes by a name which signifies Thieves. They have a similar appellation among the Fins, and with the same signification. They preserve every where the same features, manners, and customs, and, what is more remarkable, almost always the same mode of dress. The extraordinary resemblance of the female gipsies to the women of India, was remarked by our officers and men in Egypt, when General Baird arrived with his army to join Lord Hutchinson. The seapoys had many of their women with them, who were exactly like our gipsies. In their dress, they lavish all their finery upon their head. Their costume in Russia is very different from that of the va tives: they wear enormous caps. covered with ribbons, and decorated in front with a prodigious quantity of silver coins, which form a maited mail-work over their foreheads. They also wear such coins as necklaces, and have the smallest to be met with in the empire for pendants to their ears. The Russians hold them in great contempt, never speaking of them without abuse; and feel themselves contaminated by their touch, unless it be to have their fortune told. They believe a gipsy not only has the wish, but the power, to cheat every one they see, and therefore generally avoid them. Formerly they were more scattered over Russia, and paid no tribute; * See the Commentary of Professor Porthan, of Abo in Finland, upon the Chro nicle of that University. His works are not sufficiently known. He has given the History and Origin of the Finland Tribes; and a very erudite Dissertation concern ing the Gipsies. but but now they are collected, and all belong to one nobleman, to whom they pay a certain tribute, and rank among the number of his slaves. They accompany their dances by singing, and loud clapping of the hands; breaking forth, at intervals, with shrieks and short expressive cries, adapted to the sudden movements, gestures, and turns of the dance. The male dancers hold in one hand a handkerchief, which they wave about, and manage with grace as well as art. The dance, full of the grossest libidinous expression, and most indecent posture, is in other respects graceful. Nothing can be more so than the manner in which they sometimes wave and extend their arms: it resembles the attitudes of BacchanaJians represented on Greek vases. But the women do not often exhibit those attitudes. They generally maintain a stiff upright position, keeping their feet close, and beating a tattoo with their high heels. "When the Russians dance the Barina, it is accompanied with the Balalaika. Formerly they were great admirers of that simple and pleasing instrument; but now, imitating the manners of France and England, it has been laid aside. Many of them are still able to play it; but as they deem such an accomplishment a sort of degradation in the eyes of foreigners, they are seldom prevailed upon to use it; like the ladies of Wales, who, scarce able to speak English, affect ignorance of their native tongue. "Collected in other parts of rooms opened for this assembly, were vocal performers, in parties of ten or twelve each, singing voluntaries. They preserved the most perfect harmony, each taking a separate part, though without any seeming consciousness of the skill abus exerted. The female dancers and assistants in this ball were many of them prostitutes; but the wives and daughters of the peasants and lower tradesmen mingied with them, dressed out in their full national costuine, and apparently not at all displeased with such society. The ball of the nobles admits a very different description. It took place every Tuesday; and, it may be truly said, Europe has not beheld its equal. I never was more struck by the appearance of an assembly convened for the purpose of dancing. The laws of the society exclude every person who is by birth a plebeian; and this exclusion has been extended to foreigners; therefore we felt grateful in being allowed admission. Prince Viazemskoi, who married an English lady, kindly procured tickets for us; although it was considered dangerous at that time to have the character of hospitality towards Englishmen.* If his highness be now living, he is requested to pardon this testimony of his generous condescension. I feel sensible that a congeniality of sentiment will render any apology superfluous for the sacrifice I have elsewhere made in the cause of truth. "The coup d'œil upon entering the grand saloon is inconceivable. During ten years that I have been accustomed to spectacles of a similar nature in different parts of the continent, I have never seen any thing with which it might compare. I wish to lay particular stress upon this circumstance, as almost all travellers have celebrated Russian hospitality, and particularly that of the inhabitants of Moscow. "L'hospitalité des Russes," say the Authors of the Voyage de Deux Français, " pa14 roîs iei dans tout son jour." The The company consisted of near two thousand persons; nobles only be ing admitted. The dresses were the most sumptuous that can be imagined; and, what is more re markable, they were conceived in the purest taste, and were in a high degree becoming. The favourite ornaments of the ladies were cameos, which they wore upon their arms, in girdles round their: waists, or upon their bosoms; a mode of adorning the fair which has since found its way to our own country, and which was originally derived from Paris; but the women of France and England may go to Moscow, in order to see their own fashions set off to advantage. Their drapery was disposed chiefly after the Grecian costume, and they wore their hair bound up round the head. The modes of dress in London and Paris are generally blended together by the ladies of Moscow, who select from either what may become them best; and, in justice to their charms, it must be confessed, no country in the world can boast superior beauty. When, in addition to their personal attractions, it is considered, that the most excessive extravagance is used to procure whatever may contribute to their adornment; that a whole fortune is sometimes lavished on a single dress; that they are assembled in one of the finest rooms in the world, lighted and decorated with matchless elegance and splendour; it may be supposed the effect has never been surpassed. "In such an assembly, we had every reason to suppose a couple of English travellers might pass without notice. We had, moreover, a particular reason for hoping this would be the case; as, in obedience to a decree of the Emperor Paul, we had collected our short hair into a cue, which appeared most ridiculously curtailed, sticking out, like any thing but that which it was intended to represent; and most remarkably contrasted with the long tails of the Russians. Unfortunately the case was otherwise and a curiosity to see the two Englishmen becoming general, to our great dismay we found ourselves surrounded by a crowd of persons, some of whom thought proper to ask, "Who cut "our hair?" Such questions, it may be conceived, did not add to the evening's amusement: but our astonishment was completed the next day, ia receiving the thanks and blessings of a poor ragged barber, who had powdered us at the inn, and whose fortune he assured us we had made; all the young nobles having sent for him, to cut and dress their hair in the same ridicu lous manner. "I should not have mentioned such a trifling incident, if it had not ultimately taken a very serious turn; for the police officers interfering, the young men, who had thus docked themselves, were apprehended in the public walks, severely reprimanded, and compelled to wear false hair; and we were obliged to use the utmost circumspection, lest we should also be apprehended, and perhaps treated with more rigour. "The dances were called Quadrilles, Polonese, and English. The Waltz, once their favourite, had been prohibited. But whatever name they * It is related very generally, in the higher circles of the city, that a princess of Moscow, who had purchased a wig to imitate the colour of her own hair, confined her hair-dresser in a closet, fed him always herself, and allowed him only to come out during her toilette, in order that her false tresses might not be detected. gave them, they were all dull; consisting merely in a sort of promenade. Neither the men nor the women evinced the slightest degree of animation while dancing, but seemed to consider it an apology for not sitting still. Every person wore. full dress; the men appearing either in uniform, or coats of very rich embroidery. 66 COUNTRY AND HABITS OF THE COSSACKS AND CIRCASSIANS. [From the same.] E now drew near to the plains; and even serene skies, to W Kuban, and had reached which we had been so long accus the last post-house before arriving at EKATERINEDARA, when the view of the Caucasian mountains opened upon us, extending, in a craggy and mountainous ridge, from east to west. I endeavoured to recall a former impression made upon my mind in the approach to the Alps from Augsburg; and the recollection served to convince me, that the range of Mount Caucasus has neither the apparent altitude nor grandeur of the Alpine, whatever their relative heights may be. Marshal Biberstein, a celebrated Russian botanist and traveller, afterwards informed me, that he considered Mount Chat in Caucasus higher than Mont Blanc: it is certainly visible at the immense distance of two hundred miles. The snowy summits of the Alps are seen for a day's journey before reaching them, glittering above the line of clouds collected near their bases; cspecially by a traveller who approaches the Tirol, where they seen to rise up all at once like a wall from the plains of Suabia. To us, indeed, who had travelled so long in the flats of Russia, the Caucasian mountains were a new and very interesting sight. Our eyes were fatigued by the uniformity of perpetual tomed, were gladly exchanged for the refreshing winds of the hills, the frequent showers, and the rolling clouds, which always accompay them. Trees also began to appear, and the banks of the Kuban were covered with woods. The oak, so long a stranger, reared his venerable head; and the willow, the bramble, wild raspberries, blooming shrubs, and thick underwood, covered the ground, affording retreat to abundance of wild boars and deer. The last are often taken young, and kept as tame animals in the cottages of the country. "EKATERINEDARA, or Catherine's Gift, the capital of the Tchernomorski Cossacs, makes a very extraordinary appearance. It has no resemblance to a town; but is rather a grove or forest of oaks, in which a number of straggling cottages, widely separated, are çoncealed not only from all general observation, but even from the view of each other. The inhabitants have cut down and cleared as many as they could; but the streets, if they may be so called, and the spaces between the houses, are covered. with dwarf oaks, and thick branches of scions yet rising from the roots which are left in the earth. The antiquity antiquity of the tumuli which cover all this country may in some degree be proved even by the appearance of the oaks growing on them. We saw some trees, perhaps as old as any in the world, which were so situated. The inhabitants had dug into the tumuli, to form cellars for their ice and wine; and, in so doing, found several earthen vases, deposited with the skeletons which these sepulchres contained; but unfortunately they destroyed every thing they discovered. The air in this metropolitan forest is pestiferous, and the water of the place very unwholesome. Fevers, similar to those which prevail near the Pontine marches, at Pæstum, and on the coast of Baia in Italy, afflict those who reside here. In the environs, however, the air is better; and, perhaps, when the ground is cleared, so as to admit a free circulation, and thoroughly cultivated by the increase of gardens, the health of the inhabitants will be less injured; but from its damp situation, and the vicinity of extensive marshes on the Circassian side of the Kuban, Ekaterinedara is never likely to be a desirable place of residence. The very foundation of the city bore date only eight years previous to our arrival; so that it still had the appearance of a colony newly transported to the wildernesses of America, maintaining a struggle against all the obstacles opposed to it, from inhospitable natives, impenetrable woods, and an unwholesome climate. The houses of the inhabitants were neater than our best English cottages. Each owner póssessed a large area before his door, to which an avenue of the finest oaks conducted; also an adjoining garden, in which we noticed the vine, the water-melon, and the cucumber. The sun-flower blooms spontaneously every where, with out cultivation; and many plans found only in our greenhouses are the weeds of the plain. The climate, from a proximity to the mountains, is humid and cloudy, agitated by frequent and violent winds, with thunder, and sudden tempestuous rains. "In their new settlement, the Tchernomorski still display the same manners and mode of life which they practised before they migrated from the Dnieper. By this means the Circassians, and even those of the Russians who live among them or near them, are instructed in many domestic arts of comfort and cleanliness to which they were be fore strangers. Celebrated as they justly are for their skill in horsemanship, they acknowledge themselves inferior in this respect to the Circassians, whose light bodies, lightly accoutred, on the fleetest horses in the world, outstrip them in the chace. Yet I know not a more interesting object than a Cossack of the Tchernomorski mounted and equipped for war. It is then only they may be said to exist, and in their native element; brandishing their long lances in the air, bending, turning, or halting suddenly when in full speed, with so much graceful attitude, and such natural dignity, that the horses and his rider seem as one animal. "The reins of government are entirely in the hands of the Ataman and his officers. These wear the most theatrical and showy dresses which are known to any people in the whole world. Their breasts are covered with chains of gold and lace. Their sabre is Turkish, their boots of red or yellow-coloured leather, their cap of black velvet, ornamented with lace and silver chains, or fine black Tartarian wool, taken |